Animal Capture Cage

[victor]

How does it work? Do I just throw it in a place and animals will come and run on it and get theirselves locked in it? Do I throw a bait and place it next to the bait? Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

[Xayah]

You place it down and they either a: will go into it because of mechanics b: won't. Bait helps you. They get automatically taken to the base if they go in it. Throw it on the cage.

[ietso]

As far as I know you just place them and you'll get some small animals after you go back to base. You don't have to do anything else than placing it.

[Greb]

I think it can be fully upgraded so you can hold 8 at once. The maximum you can place at once appears to be 8. There's three tiers of upgrading, the first one can only catch common animals, the second can catch common and uncommon, and the third can catch common, uncommon and rare. The only rare animal I've caught is a Red Fox, captured from cages placed around the Wakh Sihnd Barracks.

Basically it works like a mine, and when its down at the end of a mission/when you return to the ACC via anything but the pause menu, they'll randomly turn out a captured animal. They never fail to catch anything, and you'll never see an animal run inside it yourself, sadly. They can catch small creatures from gerbils to bats, to black mambas, long eared hedgehogs, leopard geckos, scorpions and so on - from what I can tell, mostly creatures you never actually see during gameplay.

Capture cages at the max level cost 3000 to bring with you and some black carrot, but even if you immediately place all 8 in a circle at the start of a mission they'll pay for themselves, even if you only catch 8 gerbils. Typically it'll net you 240 Heroism and 4000 GMP. Makes them great for any mission, but even better for fast farmable missions, like Occupation Forces.

Bait bottles are something else. You throw them, and it forces animals to spawn. From what I can gather, it's how you farm for the Ultra Rare animals, just keep throwing them down in certain areas until they appear. As Frosty said, it's also possible if you place cages and bombard them with bait bottles, the chance of the cages turning out a rare animal might increase.

[Kuro]

Capture cages don't seem to be working outside of the main missions, I never get a notification of an animal being rescued in side ops.

[ietso]

Originally posted by Fox:

Capture cages don't seem to be working outside of the main missions, I never get a notification of an animal being rescued in side ops.

They do work in side missions and free-roam, you just get them once you return to the helicopter.

[Scottrf]

Originally posted by Fox:

Capture cages don't seem to be working outside of the main missions, I never get a notification of an animal being rescued in side ops.

When you are picked up by helicopter you get an animal for all of your cages placed.

Certain animals require that you place the cages in a specific location, and I think the terrain (stream, bush, grass etc) is important.

E.g. Place on on the hillside before guardpost 4 for a Blanford's Fox, west of the airport for African Civet.

[Kuro]

Seems like it is a bug, when you use "Return to ACC" in the options menu you do not get the contents of the capture cages. If you call in a helicopter and return that way you do indeed get them.

[ietso]

Originally posted by Fox:

Seems like it is a bug, when you use "Return to ACC" in the options menu you do not get the contents of the capture cages. If you call in a helicopter and return that way you do indeed get them.

Returning to ACC through menu is reloading a checkpoint, after all.

[biscotti]

Originally posted by ietso:

Returning to ACC through menu is reloading a checkpoint, after all.

What about placing them, triggering a checkpoint save afterwards and THEN returning to the ACC?

[ietso]

Originally posted by Biscotti:

Originally posted by ietso:

Returning to ACC through menu is reloading a checkpoint, after all.

What about placing them, triggering a checkpoint save afterwards and THEN returning to the ACC?

Don't think that will work, since you collect the animals in the screen right after you depart.

[Kuro]

Originally posted by Biscotti:

Originally posted by ietso:

Returning to ACC through menu is reloading a checkpoint, after all.

What about placing them, triggering a checkpoint save afterwards and THEN returning to the ACC?

Doesn't work have checked it. Even if you do not use a checkpoint you will get everything you aqcuired when using the ACC option except capture cage contents. You need to use the helicopter for them to trigger.

[biscotti]

That's a bummer.
Oh well

[Ampersand]

After you set down the cages, just accept a mission, either one that is close by, or "Cloaked in Silence" or "Metallic Archaea", which will trigger the cages. Then you can just abort the mission.

[Bisonfan95]

If you dont want to leave the map just accept a mission thats close by, go to the site and start the mission, youll get the captures. Then abort the mission and bingo