OP polecats lol

[Brayson290]

I keep trying to buy chickens from merchants, but the first time a polecat came up and killed the chicken before I could even rope it. The next two times, after roping my chickens and putting them in a pen, the polecats immediately hopped the fence and ate them again lol Do I have to wall off my farm just to have chickens? lol

[Kaelroth]

Keeping chickens is pretty easy if you take the proper precautions. You just need to make sure that the chicken pen is only accessible by walking through a regular door, not a gate.

As long as the area is surrounded by a regular block wall (not stone/wicker fences) or a trench and the only way to enter the area is through a regular door, then polecats and foxes can't enter the area to attack them.

If you're worried that chickens you buy from merchants will be killed before you can rope them, make sure that the merchant's chickens are fully in your settlement when you buy them (the animals often lag behind the merchant). You can have added security by building the merchant stall in an area that also requires the merchant (and his chickens) to pass through a regular door. Again, that will prevent polecats/foxes from being able to attack them.

[Tempered]

You are all way over thinking this. All you need to do is put a couple torches around your chicken coup. Nothing will eat the chickens with the torches around them. They may come in and eat your kibble or eggs, but not the chickens.

[Kaelroth]

Messaggio originale di Tempered:

You are all way over thinking this. All you need to do is put a couple torches around your chicken coup. Nothing will eat the chickens with the torches around them. They may come in and eat your kibble or eggs, but not the chickens.

Torches can run out of fuel and worse, can get bugged where they become a black hole for fuel resources and a significant waste of time for your settlers trying to sate the insatiable devouring maw that can be the bugged out light source. I have seen it happen many times.

It's much better to just use a regular door in combination with a regular wall or trench. The only thing more simpler than using a regular door is to not keep chickens/pheasants/etc at all.

[Tempered]

Messaggio originale di Kaelroth:

Messaggio originale di Tempered:

You are all way over thinking this. All you need to do is put a couple torches around your chicken coup. Nothing will eat the chickens with the torches around them. They may come in and eat your kibble or eggs, but not the chickens.

Torches can run out of fuel and worse, can get bugged where they become a black hole for fuel resources and a significant waste of time for your settlers trying to sate the insatiable devouring maw that can be the bugged out light source. I have seen it happen many times.

It's much better to just use a regular door in combination with a regular wall or trench. The only thing more simpler than using a regular door is to not keep chickens/pheasants/etc at all.

My current settlement is in year 1361 and I've never seen this happen. Even if it does happen, the torches should give you time to build out your walls to enclose any animal pens. Enclosure is of course the ultimate goal. You want everything vital to your settlement within protective walls. You know you can also set the priority of which torches are most important to keep lit, right?

[Kaelroth]

Messaggio originale di Tempered:

Messaggio originale di Kaelroth:

Torches can run out of fuel and worse, can get bugged where they become a black hole for fuel resources and a significant waste of time for your settlers trying to sate the insatiable devouring maw that can be the bugged out light source. I have seen it happen many times.

It's much better to just use a regular door in combination with a regular wall or trench. The only thing more simpler than using a regular door is to not keep chickens/pheasants/etc at all.

My current settlement is in year 1361 and I've never seen this happen. Even if it does happen, the torches should give you time to build out your walls to enclose any animal pens. Enclosure is of course the ultimate goal. You want everything vital to your settlement within protective walls. You know you can also set the priority of which torches are most important to keep lit, right?

I do know this. I also know that if the torch bugs out, priority won't matter at all since it would never get filled with fuel and re-lit. The fact that you seem to think the priority system is infallible and a guarantee that everything works as you expect suggests that you haven't spent as much time playing the game as I have to see these issues appear. Just because you've never seen a torch get bugged doesn't mean it doesn't happen. The settler AI is also decidedly not the most robust aspect of the game.

Regular door and walls/trench are still simpler then needing someone to successfully refill a torch. Pens for chickens don't need to be large, so the expenditure of time and materials are minimal to making the pen safe from predators. After it is built, there's zero maintenance to keep them safe, aside from damage caused by a raider/trebuchet. While torches may help, they are entirely unnecessary and a potential failure point for the animals' safety. Regardless of how simple a solution you think it is, it will always be less simple than a regular door and walls/trenches.

[Tempered]

Torch, 1 hour or less to put up. Walls, half a day or more. Which one is going to protect your brand new chicken quicker. No refill needed on a new torch for days so no worries about your random bug.

[Kaelroth]

Time to create is an utterly pointless concern.

Why would you need to worry about quicker protection when you should have built the pen BEFORE you acquire chickens? The time and resources it would take to construct the limestone/wicker fence/gate is not much different from building walls and a door.

The only reason to have chickens is for having eggs for painting. They're not worth keeping for food because of how little they provide. Painting is not an early game tech or even a necessary one since tapestries can also be crafted for the same effect. The only reason to keep chickens is because the player wants to keep them.

Additionally, the torch requires a settler to refuel which is wasteful when they should be doing more important tasks like making food, crafting, constructing, mining or virtually ANY other task besides stewarding.

[Tempered]

Real sorry torches killed your family or something. Maybe after some therapy you could look into using one and see how much bullox you are spouting. Who is going to protect your chickens after the trebuchet knocks down your labor intensive wall? A torch, that's who. What happens when you inevitably change or rebuild your walls and there is a gap for the second it takes for a polecat to come in and slaughter your chickens. A torch. If you think the only reason to have chickens is just for painting, then I have to wonder if you even play the game.

[Kaelroth]

Not sure why you're so determined to ignore the truth. Spouting bollocks? You're just a troll at this point. You should build yourself a bridge, crawl under it and stay there.

Labor intensive wall? It takes just as much labor to make a wall as it does a fence. Concerns about trebuchets? You know your precious torches have fewer hit points than a wall or even a fence right? Trebuchets are more a threat to your method than to mine.

Why would I need to change or rebuild the walls? If I wanted to change/move the pen, I can just build around it or build a new pen and have the settlers move the chickens to it without putting them at risk to polecats.

Here's a question for you - what happens when your settlers fail to refill your precious torch in a timely manner? Answer - your chickens get eaten by polecats.

You say you're method is simpler?
Your method:
step - build pen with fencing/gate
step 2- build torch
step 3- refuel torch indefinitely

My method:
step 1- build pen with walls/door
step 2- do other things because I'm done and now my chickens are safe from predators without constant maintenance from settlers

That is simpler and nothing you can say would possibly change that. I have over 1000 hours playing this game, how about you? Chickens are necessary for more than painting? Pray tell for what? Food? You get more food from virtually all the other domesticatable animals in the game and the ones that provide the same amount of food are also in danger from polecats. Chickens are useful for 1 thing: eggs. If you don't know that, then you'd be the one who doesn't know what he's talking about and shouldn't be giving advice to others on how to play the game.

[JR's TARDIS]

I just built a walled area, split in two, with regular doors on the outer walls and barn doors inside and a roof covering the inner part. you can also add torches to help protect them. Make sure that there is no ladder access (because those polecats sure can climb!)

Only time there is an issue is if the walls are breached.

-JR

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198229761904/screenshot/2432577673780640671/

[Alphakuh]

You only need a torch.