Hey, did ya know you could anger a whole herd??

[imwithdummy]

Haha boy I sure didn't! Just figured I could use some Rhinoceros skin so scooped up my two best shooters and skipped out to meet one halfway across the map, and well...wouldn't you know it! Imagine my surprise when the entire herd of them became fully enraged right off the bat and killed what amounted to half my crew in...shoot, nearly no time at all! Haha killed them dead! Just...no real chance to survive that encounter at all, they were merciless...what an absolute bloodbath LOL

So we're just going to take a break from the old computer here for a bit to fully absorb what just happened, try and make the best out of this little learning moment...what a day this one turned out to be!

Haha so is this a new mechanic or has that always been a possibility? An entire herd rushing for blood like that? Because...goddang that was brutal =P

[BlackSmokeDMax]

That has always been a possibility. It's still possible (and more likely) for just the one you are shooting at to come at you as well.

[KalkiKrosah]

Yeah, many young colonies meet their end to large angry stampedes. When you go hunting prioritize your hunting like so:

1. Docile herbivores (Deer, rats, chinchillas, turkeys, Ibex Rams, Muffalo)
2. Small ornery solitary roamers (Squirrels, Iguanas, Lynx, Foxes, Cobras, Turtles)
3. Explodey animals (Boomrats and Boomalope)
4. Larger packs of small animals (Monkeys, boars, Capybara, Alphabeavers and gazelles)
5. Larger Predators (Wolves, Panthers, Cougars, Wargs & Bears)
6. Antagonistic animals (Bugs, Emu & Thrumbos)
7. Large packs of animals (Elephants, Rhinos, Caribou and Elk)

Rhinos are one of the most dangerous things to hunt. Avoid hunting them without serious firepower at your disposal. They get angry very easily and they can cause a lot of damage by themselves and even more so in a group.

[Xeal]

Yeahhhhhh looks like you learned a valuable lesson. So here's the thing, the game gives you numbers for accuracy and in this case, chance it will get mad when you attack it, but there's always a number of other factors that may increase or decrease this value. In the case of hunting, there is hunter stealth. Hunting uses two skills, shooting and animals. Shooting is obviously their ability to land shots and animals affects their "hunter stealth" their knowledge of 'hiding' from various animals and you said you sent your best shooters, but how is their animal skill? I can't confirm nor deny this, but lighting has effect on aim, I'd be willing to bet it has an effect on "hunter stealth" as well. Personally, whenever I'm going after stuff like rhinos, wargs, and other large packs, I tend to just bring the whole goon squad and mow them down.

[M.K.]

All creatures that have a chance to go manhunter when hunted,ALSO have a chance to aggro the whole herd.
I think the chance is about the same as the initial manhunter chance.
Rhino manhunter chance is 10% per attack, so pack chance is something like 10% of 10%=1%?

And yes, ordinary docile Muffalo can also go manhunter, despite the chance being very low.
Even the whole herd.
And as Muffalo herds tend to be big, and manhunting events so rare on them, it can cause quite the surprise.

[imwithdummy]

Originally posted by BlackSmokeDMax:

That has always been a possibility. It's still possible (and more likely) for just the one you are shooting at to come at you as well.

I'm 600+ hours in and...well at least I don't remember ever having that happen before. Okay, well...learned lesson the hard way, but learned it at least =P

Originally posted by KalkiKrosah:

Whole bunch of great info for you

This is great, and I was actually following it somewhat already, but that rhino hide was just mighty tempting. Didn't figure on the whole damn herd though....lol @ your adjectives btw. Ornery, explodey lol
Good to hear that Muffalo aren't that dangerous...wasn't so sure about those guys, and they've been picknicking around my camp for awhile now. Times up for them...and this one's for my special shootey duo!

Originally posted by Xeal:

Yeahhhhhh looks like you learned a valuable lesson. So here's the thing, the game gives you numbers for accuracy and in this case, chance it will get mad when you attack it, but there's always a number of other factors that may increase or decrease this value. In the case of hunting, there is hunter stealth. Hunting uses two skills, shooting and animals. Shooting is obviously their ability to land shots and animals affects their "hunter stealth" their knowledge of 'hiding' from various animals and you said you sent your best shooters, but how is their animal skill? I can't confirm nor deny this, but lighting has effect on aim, I'd be willing to bet it has an effect on "hunter stealth" as well. Personally, whenever I'm going after stuff like rhinos, wargs, and other large packs, I tend to just bring the whole goon squad and mow them down.

Thank you! I've noticed the animal skill being involved there, but wasn't sure what that was about...didn't remember that being the case a year or so ago, last time I played. I think both their animal skills were pretty much non-existant, tbh. They were shooting at around 8, but their hunting skill was 4.something. So...yeah not so much =P

The thing was, I downed a Rhino earlier in this game without any problem at all, so figured I'd just pick another off real quick and make that final button-up shirt. At the same time, I JUST had my butt handed to me by a single solitary warg that'd been loitering around my base for ages now. Thought I could just go kill him right quick, get it done already, but....anyway should have checked myself some with this last one. Oh well, lesson learned...and a lot more here about it, so thanks for that. Thank you.
Those...stupid rhinos lol

Originally posted by M.K.:

And yes, ordinary docile Muffalo can also go manhunter, despite the chance being very low.
Even the whole herd.
And as Muffalo herds tend to be big, and manhunting events so rare on them, it can cause quite the surprise.

Okay, well never mind then, those loitering Muffalo around my house aren't really hurting anything anyway LOL
Alright, gotcha M.K. Its making more and more sense to not be in the situation where you're having to stand there and shoot at them over and over again. Yeah, will probably be doing some serious target practice here before going up against anything bigger than rats, turtles etc.

[imwithdummy]

So just curious...what's the best way to go about hunting if you don't want to wait until you're loaded up in body armor and mini guns? Get your hunters' animal skills up?
Maybe have them taming a map full of rats, squirrels, etc in between bouts of shooting practice?

[KalkiKrosah]

Muffalo are big and tanky. They give a lot of meat. But for their size they hit soft. They headbutt, occasionally they bite, they stomp on you but they are less threatening than their size would imply. If you can try taming a couple of the female muffalo before wiping out the whole herd. Muffalo make great caravan animals, they can have their fur harvested and the females produce milk. If you have ample supply of grass just growing near your base you can let the muffalo free roam and you can get free resources without much effort. And they are very easy to tame too.

[Xeal]

Get their shooting up, get their animal skill up, and give them long range weapons. Attacking up close will also increase the chance of aggroing them by a lot. I actually tend to aggro muffalo herds way more than 2% of the time when I use short range stuff by mistake. I would also watch the hunters, make sure they don't get super close and need to peek around a corner or something.

[M.K.]

Originally posted by imwithdummy:

Get your hunters' animal skills up?

That's the ticket!

That manhunter chance is the *base* chance.
If attacking for a long range, it reduced a lot. Range also helps with running if needed!
If the hunter has good animal skill, it reduces more.
Aggro can only happen *after* being wounded. So if the hunter kills target with one shot, no aggro is possible.

Originally posted by Xeal:

I actually tend to aggro muffalo herds way more than 2% of the time when I use short range stuff by mistake.

Remember the aggro chance is *per wound*, not per one hunt.

[imwithdummy]

Originally posted by KalkiKrosah:

Muffalo are big and tanky. They give a lot of meat. But for their size they hit soft. They headbutt, occasionally they bite, they stomp on you but they are less threatening than their size would imply. If you can try taming a couple of the female muffalo before wiping out the whole herd. Muffalo make great caravan animals, they can have their fur harvested and the females produce milk. If you have ample supply of grass just growing near your base you can let the muffalo free roam and you can get free resources without much effort. And they are very easy to tame too.

That's a good point...they sound pretty low maintenance, yeah that's exactly what I'm going to do, tame me a couple of these Muffalos. Didn't know you could harvest their fur...very nice. Thanks Kalki.

Thanks guys, so...animal skill up, range waaaay back...some long-range weapons...going to get back in and make all those lesser animals pay first, then those rabid Rhinos at some point...pretty far off, probably lol

[KalkiKrosah]

Originally posted by imwithdummy:

So just curious...what's the best way to go about hunting if you don't want to wait until you're loaded up in body armor and mini guns? Get your hunters' animal skills up?
Maybe have them taming a map full of rats, squirrels, etc in between bouts of shooting practice?

Appropriate weaponry is a start. Autopistols and Revolvers for small prey that doesn't fight back much. Bolt action for animals that can be dangerous but travel alone. Sniper rifle for the really dangerous stuff. And LMG and Assault Rifles when you willingly want to wipe out a herd and plan on a mass manhunter event triggering.

You can also send out a runner who can gather the aggro and run around your shooters and buy your shooters more time to get in more bullets without putting the shooters at risk.

You can also shoot a herd, trigger them all to aggro and then race back behind your stone doors and wait until they bleed out/lose interest. That requires pre-planning on your part by building a defensive perimeter.

And my personal favorite hunting method: Firing up the mortars. Its not practical, its not economical, its not even accurate... but it is satisfying and it is safe.

[M.K.]

Originally posted by KalkiKrosah:

Appropriate weaponry ... LMG and Assault Rifles when you willingly want to wipe out a herd and plan on a mass manhunter event triggering.

When hunting a herd of Rhinos, Elephant or Thrumbos, this is pretty much a requirement.
They all occur in herds, have a high aggro chance, and take more than one bullet to bring down.

When I go out to hunt Rhino, I take not just the one hunter, but every gun-totin' redneck I can lay my hand on. Consider it a family picnic and group shooting skill trainer.
You will pump a *lot* of shots into a nice big elephant herd, so there's a lot of shooting training to be had.

[imwithdummy]

Originally posted by KalkiKrosah:

You can also send out a runner who can gather the aggro and run around your shooters and buy your shooters more time to get in more bullets without putting the shooters at risk.

Well this is pretty interesting. You wouldn't need any real prep for a runner...because he could just keep running, never having to stop and shoot, huh?
So just pick some sucker to go out there and act like a rodeo clown, pretty much? Nothing more to it than that, really?

[KalkiKrosah]

Originally posted by M.K.:

Originally posted by KalkiKrosah:

Appropriate weaponry ... LMG and Assault Rifles when you willingly want to wipe out a herd and plan on a mass manhunter event triggering.

When hunting a herd of Rhinos, Elephant or Thrumbos, this is pretty much a requirement.
They all occur in herds, have a high aggro chance, and take more than one bullet to bring down.

When I go out to hunt Rhino, I take not just the one hunter, but every gun-totin' redneck I can lay my hand on. Consider it a family picnic and group shooting skill trainer.
You will pump a *lot* of shots into a nice big elephant herd, so there's a lot of shooting training to be had.

Hunting large herd animals is practically impossible as a tribal (most of my starts are tribals or medieval mod related) so those animals are usually off limits to me for a majority of the game. I have to get creative when hunting large herds.

Have you ever tried hunted with melee weapons? Its interesting to see what works and what doesn't when spears and swords are your best option for getting fresh meat.

[KalkiKrosah]

Originally posted by imwithdummy:

Originally posted by KalkiKrosah:

You can also send out a runner who can gather the aggro and run around your shooters and buy your shooters more time to get in more bullets without putting the shooters at risk.

Well this is pretty interesting. You wouldn't need any real prep for a runner...because he could just keep running, never having to stop and shoot, huh?
So just pick some sucker to go out there and act like a rodeo clown, pretty much? Nothing more to it than that, really?

Yup. The runner is the only guy who you really have to micro manage. Run him in a circle around your shooters, avoid the rougher terrain patches and you should be good. It helps to have fast walker or jogger by the way. And don't be afraid to pause and redirect shooters to change targets. As animals take damage they lose speed so sometimes its better to change targets to an undamaged full speed target as opposed to the one that is leading the pack and full of bullet holes already. And every once in a while a part of the herd will switch off your runner and charge the firing squad in which case you want to shoot the lone wolf in that scenario. Practice it. Its a legitimate strategy that reduces risk a whole lot.