How does wildlife spawning work?

[happyscrub]

I normally play or temperate forest. And usually at the start, I'll see a very diverse wildlife. But after playing for some days, some wildlife just disappear.

Wargs and Lynx I see often at start and then never see them again
Timberwolves become rare and so do cougars.
Bears on the other hand end up being all over the place

I'm thinking do I need to just hunt the entire map to make it reset or something? Or is something in the code that prevents some of those animals from spawningm?

[Lorax]

Hmmm... Not sure but I could wager that the Canrivores won't spawn if they don't have enough prey on the map. And after the player starts taking over large chunks of the map and hunting the easy prey, they die off (just like real life). Everyonce in a while it seems the game decides there's enough wildlife around to spawn in a small predator like a fox or a lone wolf. And the reason bears continue to exist is their Omivores and can live with out large amounts of prey.

[Astasia]

The game tries to maintain a certain number of animals on the map. If there are too many nothing else will spawn. If there's not enough it spawns completely random stuff, based on the biome and weather (if the temperature is too extreme nothing will spawn). Animals will leave if the temperature changes too much or there's not enough food for them.

There is no logic to the spawning other than that. IE the game doesn't maintain any sort of balanced eco system or check for existing food sources before spawning a creature.

Bears tend to last a while on a map because they are omnivorous and nothing hunts them. Pure predators need game to hunt or they quickly leave the map (or attack your colonists).

[happyscrub]

Originally posted by Lorax:

Hmmm... Not sure but I could wager that the Canrivores won't spawn if they don't have enough prey on the map. And after the player starts taking over large chunks of the map and hunting the easy prey, they die off (just like real life). Everyonce in a while it seems the game decides there's enough wildlife around to spawn in a small predator like a fox or a lone wolf. And the reason bears continue to exist is their Omivores and can live with out large amounts of prey.

I don't even hunt that often. In my current game I had a large cow farm and switched to chickens. I even started to stop hunting and buying meat to suppliment the farm.

So everything out there has been left to it's own means.

[happyscrub]

Originally posted by Astasia:

The game tries to maintain a certain number of animals on the map. If there are too many nothing else will spawn. If there's not enough it spawns completely random stuff, based on the biome and weather (if the temperature is too extreme nothing will spawn). Animals will leave if the temperature changes too much or there's not enough food for them.

There is no logic to the spawning other than that. IE the game doesn't maintain any sort of balanced eco system or check for existing food sources before spawning a creature.

Bears tend to last a while on a map because they are omnivorous and nothing hunts them. Pure predators need game to hunt or they quickly leave the map (or attack your colonists).

I guess this is true. I just went on a murderous rampage on the wildlife and ended up with 2 wargs spawning

[For_Science!]

Originally posted by happyscrub:

I don't even hunt that often. In my current game I had a large cow farm and switched to chickens.

That could actually be the reason for your decline in wildlife right there -- especially the chickens. When there are already a lot of creatures on the map -- wild or tame -- new "wandering wildlife" won't spawn in as often. And those chickens can reproduce fast...

[Rav3n]

I have a bad habbit of leaving boomrats and their fellow boomers be. This leads the massive heards of the the things roaming around. Once a herd went beserk and blew half the colony to bits. Now I make it a habbit of forming a hunting party when it rains. Spicy boommeat ftw!