Animals?

[McDerkins]

I've been doing some thinking and I think it would be cool to have a variety of animals in the long dark. Animals such as moose, brown bear, fox, and some predatory birds. I think this would be a nice addition to the long dark because in the game now there are only 4 types of animals deer, bears, wolves, and rabbits. Also maybe add in does because right now all of the deer are bucks. The one animals that I think is the one that should be put in is moose. Moose are very big animals much bigger than deer and for that reason I think they serve a purpose in the game. For example you have one bullet and you can kill a deer for some meat or a moose for more. I know what your all thinking why even have deer anymore, well I say make moose rare and leave the deer they way they are. Also make moose tough so when you shoot they they need 2 bullets to go down and you have to track their blood in the snow.

[IIIIlllIIIII]

yea more animals would be pretty cool

[karaktersiz]

we need ducks. yummy.

[Barry Wheeler]

Originally posted by karaktersiz:

we need ducks. yummy.

In that case we also need a Shotgun!

[Factualious]

Originally posted by Softy:

Originally posted by karaktersiz:

we need ducks. yummy.

In that case we also need a Shotgun!

Ducks fly south for the winter... what we need are a couple species of grouse. They can be pretty dumb though. I've seen the hunting limit taken from a single tree - shoot them with a .22 starting at the bottom of the tree and work your way up, the dummies just sit there, clucking away and watching their mates fall to the ground.

A throwing stick would be a decent in-game weapon for them, could even be an alternative to snares for rabbits, once you got your skill up.

[athikers]

You can keep your Grizzly, thank you very much :-)

[akluis]

What I would find interesting would be a variety of wolf appearances. Make 4 different fur types, and 3 different sizes. Have the sizes act slightly different (biggest is more aggressive and harder to fight off, smaller is most likely to spot you, but least likely to attack)

I'd like there to be maybe 1 more basic large predator type added, Option # 1 Mountain Lion. (Harder to spot, likes to wait on cliff faces and leap at player as he walks the valley or iced over river blow.) Option # 2 would be a wolverine. Messes with/destroys your traps, if he sees you he beelines for you, no chance of scaring off, and harder to fight off than a wolf...fights longer, but once defeated is dead at your feet.

Female deer to be added, and maybe a rare appearance by other big game creatures (moose would be my choice, occasionally appears around lakes, potential to attack you, harder to kill than deer, yields triple what a deer would yield). Possibly in other maps replace deer with a more suitable creature...like in a very mountainous map have big horn sheep. Not sure that a map with a couple moose, couple elk, couple deer, couple bighorn, couple mountain goat would feel more realistic than a map where the big game animal is almost exclusively deer.

I'd like more medium/small creatures.

I'd start with a fox or something, who can be seen chasing rabbits. His main job is to have a few rabbit corpses around for you to scavenge, early game, so you can get a cut to dry, then make a snare. People could 'abuse' him the way they abuse the wolf to hunt for them (wait wolf to kill animal, chase wolf off) but that's okay because the yield from rabbit is much less, and scaring a fox off makes more sense than trying to scare off a wolf.

Then a game bird, ptarmigan would be my suggestion. Or any of Canada's grouse really.

Then a water animal, either muskrat or beaver. Maybe both. In both cases you'd rarely see them but with a hatchet you can break into the den, and possibly catch some, but mainly you'd be trapping. You get more per trap than your average rabbit snare, but fewer places where it can be set, and you have to do a bit more prep work (cutting into 'den')

Finally, SKUNKS! Something that gives a different kind of threat than wolves. Bother them up close and you get a bunch of effects including momentary blurry vision and staggering around (think of how it is to walk back to the cabin when you are below 10% warm!). Still, can be killed for about as much meat as a rabbit, guts, and fur.

key is the animals are all different, providing different opportunities, challenges and threats.

To dovetail into this added diversity I'd also change what the animals give. No longer animal specific. Now you get guts, meat, hide and/or fur. A rabbit would give 1 gut 1 fur and a bit of meat. A wolf would give meat, 2-3 guts, 3-4 furs. Hides would be dried like now to make 'rawhide' which is used make footwear and pats like now. Fur same thing, you'd just need a lot more pieces of it to make your fur coat, but it wouldn't matter if you got that fur coat from killing 40 rabbits or 4 wolves or 2 bear (or a pile of skunks!) (could be some fun achievements from crafting an item entirely from furs harvested from a single species)


Traps

I'd like to see more traps. I'd like to see a found bear trap (can trap anything) and a found wolf trap (can trap wolf, deer, or anything smaller) that wear with use and can be repaired. In addition to snares which could catch any of the small animals, I'd like to see the ability to create both large and small deadfall traps. (small = 1 cedar or fir, 1 stick, can kill small animals, is reusable. big = kill all but bear, require many cedar/fir and saplings. is reusable. However total amount to make trap is very weighty, so you probably make 2-3 trips to get your trap set up, or relocated)

[Factualious]

Originally posted by akluis:

I'd like more medium/small creatures.

+1

Porcupine... very easy meat (slow moving) which you could get with a club, and they have lots of fat (calories!); potential to make sewing kits out of line and quills. Their downsides are: they chew on wood handles (to get at the salt you've left behind), injury if you get too close and/or approach from the wrong direction.

[FLaF]

I like it !!!!

[Starwing]

They absolutely must add beavers--this is a Canadian game! I totally agree with that suggestion above.

I also agree with foxes! They would be a lot of fun, and perhaps the player could snare some foxes for a fur jacket (lower bonuses than the wolf fur jacket). That way, players who manage to avoid wolves (especially early in the game) wouldn't have such a strong incentive to go after the wolves ;)

If does are added to the game, I hope that hunting them would reduce the deer respawn rate so that one could theoretically devastate their deer population--for a period of time--if they take out too many does. That would make deer hunting an even deeper experience, in my opinion.