The Star system, and animal ageing process..

[heavensarewild]

Is this working as intended, or can it be improved at all ?

I`ve always thought any 1 Star Matures were safe to shoot, and for a while I was shooting all the 2 Stars as well, before noticing they often had high fitness scores.

But I`ve just come across a group of Elk, and none were responding to the low fitness calls, and looking at them all there was a single 1 Star Mature in there, so I shot him.

I then saw he had a fitness score of 68%, so he would likely have made it to 3 Stars, but should an animal with a score in that range, ever be 1 Star and Mature ? That is to say, should his progression be 1 Star at Young. 2 Star at Adult, and when he moves onto his Mature stage, then he automatically jumps to 3 Stars, before he dies ?

Is there some hidden attribute for animals that dictates how quickly they age ? or is it simply the fitness % that is taken into account ?

I understand to keep us on our toes, and add some risk to it, that animals might age differently, but the way some seem to "bloom" when in Mature stage, makes it hard to pinpoint exactly which animals are safe to take out.

Should an animal start at 1 Star Young, and when it reaches Adult, and if the fitness % is high enough, it will go straight to 2 Stars as an Adult, and then 3 at Mature, where it will either go on to 4-5, or die off.

I`m seeing quite a few animals with scores of 10-20%, and surely these should be the ones that go through all 3 stages and will always be 1 Star ?

The Elk I mentioned earlier, despite having a 68% fitness rating, would have stayed at 1 Star through it`s Young & Adult stage, when surely an animal with this high a rating, would see it grow through the Stars, and show as 2-3 Stars as a Mature ?

I know there are some who are fiercely again changing the Stars, and some who would prefer them gone altogether, but I`ve often felt an increase to at least 7 would help keep people interested, and allow us to make better judgement over which animals are safe to remove, for the herd management side.

What about half stars ? Which would increase the scale to 10, instead of 5, but something to make a rare, or huge antlered trophy, a little harder to find, and feel a little more special when you finally see, and get one ?

I get, this is how COTW manages the rating system, and they might not want to have their game become too similar to that, but I can see quite a few here, seem to switch off after grabbing multiple 5 Stars, and they find it hard to find a reason to keep going, so perhaps a change to the system might be better in the long run ?

For me, I`d like to see there be an option to change how the current Star ratings are viewed, and for you to be able to change it to a traffic light system. So anything Young would have the Stars show in red, as a way to warn you it might be best to leave this animal along. And then onto yellow for an Adult, so the choice is up to you.

And then anything in the Mature stage is shown in green, then you know this animal is good to harvest. This might not be good for anyone with colour blindness, but when looking through the binos at a group of animals, and watching out for anything that might be coloured green, would not only let you know there is something in there to shoot, but might also help when the binos have trouble showing spotting info, when they`re all grouped together.

[[NRG] Michal]

If you are optimizing your herds for the highest possible trophy scores (i.e. you are interested in 5* first and foremost), the fitness range that interests you is really 90% and above. When trying to achieve those, the culling tactic should be to target the lowest fit animals in the herd, if you can assess that (1* matures are the safest bet in that regard).

So then, if you are culling, shooting any non-mature animals is quite risky. Unless you see adult/young animals with wildly uneven or abnormally small antlers, which is a dead giveaway that the animal has low fitness. Conversely, if you see an adult deer that already has a relatively large and very symmetrical set of antlers, it will almost certainly grow into a seriously impressive trophy.

Without getting into too many specifics, a Roosevelt elk with ~70% fitness range will spend roughly half of his lifetime as a 1* and will only start getting a decent trophy score well into his adulthood/maturity. The trophy score math is balanced across all species to make really high-scoring animals somewhat rare.

[[NRG] Michal]

To keep the odds of high-fitness animals spawning up, you want to maintain the mean herd fitness high. The higher the mean herd fitness, the higher the odds that new spawns will have higher fitness.

So your theory is correct up to a certain point. Suppose you see a herd with a 5* mature and a 1* mature. In that case, it can be "correct" to shoot the 1* first (which maintains - or in this case actually increases - the mean herd fitness), wait for the new spawn (which will have a pretty good chance of being relatively high fitness), and then shoot the 5*. This introduces a risk though. Every day, the 5* is nearing his natural death and you can never be 100% sure that you'll see him when you return to the herd the next day (though you can use the fur color to get some clues) after letting the new animal spawn.

This playstyle is high risk, high reward :)

[sneakybass]

Originally posted by NRG Michal:

To keep the odds of high-fitness animals spawning up, you want to maintain the mean herd fitness high. The higher the mean herd fitness, the higher the odds that new spawns will have higher fitness.

So your theory is correct up to a certain point. Suppose you see a herd with a 5* mature and a 1* mature. In that case, it can be "correct" to shoot the 1* first (which maintains - or in this case actually increases - the mean herd fitness), wait for the new spawn (which will have a pretty good chance of being relatively high fitness), and then shoot the 5*. This introduces a risk though. Every day, the 5* is nearing his natural death and you can never be 100% sure that you'll see him when you return to the herd the next day (though you can use the fur color to get some clues) after letting the new animal spawn.

This playstyle is high risk, high reward :)

Im enjoying your game a lot your animal animations are really good , only at 15 hours and some how got to kill a five star mule deer about a hour and a half away from lodge could not believe It , It seems you do have random game play and seeing a huge buck In game Is still a chance for all players, that's whats hunting Is all about you just never know when its your lucky day. I cant wait to see how you guys are doing In a few more years I thank you.
You will have a hell of a game if you keep at It . Mountains are beautiful animal behaviors are life like and are spot on and amazing to see add more please and more different antlers Im addicted to this game and just want more and more.

[[NRG] Michal]

Originally posted by heavensarewild:

Ah, so I`d need to exit the game, for the new spawn to enter the herd ? I`ve been working on the premise that the game knows I`ve taken out a low fitness animal, and in the background it takes note, ready for when it creates the replacement animal.

When using this process of "shoot the lowest animal before the 5 Star" I always go after that 5 Star in question before I exit the game, and in the same session.

Am I doing it wrong in this case, and the game needs a "reboot" before it calculates any new animals in a herd ?

No, reloading the save will not do anything in this case. New animals spawn at the beginning of every in-game year.
I said earlier that you have to wait until the next day - this was misleading, as it only applies if the next day is also the start of the new year.

[JPSGT40]

Originally posted by NRG Michal:

So then, if you are culling, shooting any non-mature animals is quite risky. Unless you see adult/young animals with wildly uneven or abnormally small antlers, which is a dead giveaway that the animal has low fitness.

According to Lanini's recent post (see linked), we should NOT rely on antlers to identify bad genetic fitness because uneven antlers on Young and Adult can still grow a big and symmetrical rack when they become Mature.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1288320/discussions/0/3841053598851170853/?ctp=2#c3839927819745300797

Is this still true or has the game changed something recently?



Michal, you have told us that some low-fitness animals will never respond to their low fitness caller, and this is intentionally designed into the game. So, we cannot rely solely on the Low Fitness callers to identify low fitness animals, AND we cannot rely on antlers to identify them either.

But I have discovered that some high-fitness animals will never respond to their high fitness caller. Is this also by design?

If this is also "by design" then we can also not rely on the high fitness callers to distinguish between Low vs. High fitness.

[[NRG] Michal]

Originally posted by JPSGT40:

Michal, you have told us that some low-fitness animals will never respond to their low fitness caller, and this is intentionally designed into the game.

It's not so much that *some* will *never* respond, it would be more accurate to say that *any* animal *could* not respond. In other words, it's not a given that every eligible animal in the caller range will always react to the caller. Sometimes they may ignore it. You may pull three animals with a call one time, and another time it could be one or none. It is not meant to be 100% reliable.

However, if you ever call a +50% fitness animal with a low-fit caller, or vice versa, that would be a bug that we need to look into.

As for asymmetrical antlers on young animals, note the "wildly" uneven. Although it's true that asymmetry is not an automatic sign of low fitness, crazy obvious, borderline unhealthy-looking asymmetry is.