critters laying eggs question

[snuggleform]

I've many conflicting reports regarding this - the wiki says assuming no glum debuff, a wild critter will lay 1 egg in their lifetime. But if it gets a glumb debuff at some point, is it still guaranteed to lay one egg or not?

I've read that pacu will always lay one egg even if overcrowded before dying, but dreckos won't?

What's the most current accurate information? Do all critters follow the same rule or are there exceptions? If you wrangle offspring of hatch to an area where you aren't feeding them, will they lay an egg before dying or not? I'm super confused after reading all the different information over the years.

[Just a dog]

Shove Voles don't care. Are you sure about the Pacus?

[Prometheus]

You have gotten bad info.

Wild: Lays one egg per lifetime.
Tame but glum: Lays one egg per lifetime.
Tame and happy: Lays many eggs per lifetime (most critters this is 6 cycles per egg).
Overcrowded: Reproduction stat (yes they have one and you can see it in their tooltip) freezes. Yes, this does mean they will not lay any eggs. Pacus do overcrowd. Eggs count towards overcrowding. A maximum size stable can hold 8 critters, the 9th causes overcrowding.

Pacus follow slightly different rules. They eat far more than is reasonable to provide them. However, they go into the one egg per lifetime cycle after being fed. So feeding them effectively is a means of increasing their numbers. Its generally worth it to set up a pacu pond. All you need to do is make sure their water temp stays steady.

[SKull]

Pacu at least replace 1 to 1 if not fed, but stop laying if overcrowded afaik. Not sure about wild critters otherwise, but I think they might be more or less the same. Then again, they do die out occasionally, so maybe not. But for tamed critters other than Pacu, they stop laying if they are debuffed.
I wouldn't stress any of this too much though. It's really just a natural balancing of numbers. When they reach their limit or don't get fed their numbers stagnate or drop. And once they are fed an not debuffed they start multiplying again.

The easiest way around altogether is to make ranges outside your ranch where the critters can get to. When they are outside the ranch they don't get the debuffs if they are groomed and fed. I made this recently as a prototype to explain to someone what I mean:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1788302605

It is a multi-mass hatch ranch that eventually held about 250 hatches before I quit playing the base. But there's no real limit as long as you can feed them. All the ones on the right are very unhappy in the overcrowded ranch, but all the ones on the left are perfectly happy and keep breeding. Grooming can be a bit of an issue, but I had four ranchers working non stop on them here, so most of them had no debuffs every time they walked out on the balcony. Lots of coal, egg shells and meat. And enough hatches to fully power the base with coal and still have a growing store.
This approach is a little harder with flying critters and dreckos, since they are quite good escape artists. But the principle is sound if you do it right. Just don't make it an exit to the base so the dupes use it. Make them go in some other way where you can have a little chlorine and things for disinfecting.

I tried it like this for dreckos but wasn't too happy with it. Will try it again later.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1813594560

The left side is fine. They can't get past the water lock and suits so the dupes can stay in the hydrogen and get through the lock without becoming debuffed. it also keeps the gases in and at good pressure and makes sure they don't exhale any pesky CO2 while inside the ranch. The right side was never right though. Gases are fine, but the dreckos got too long commutes, so it took an eternity to get all of them groomed. The ranch on the left is my default drecko ranch, and it works fine alone, except the numbers are low. So that was why I tried expanding with a range. It just... Oh well.

[Just a dog]

Originally posted by Promethian:

You have gotten bad info.

Wild: Lays one egg per lifetime.
Tame but glum: Lays one egg per lifetime.
Tame and happy: Lays many eggs per lifetime (most critters this is 6 cycles per egg).
Overcrowded: Reproduction stat (yes they have one and you can see it in their tooltip) freezes. Yes, this does mean they will not lay any eggs. Pacus do overcrowd. Eggs count towards overcrowding. A maximum size stable can hold 8 critters, the 9th causes overcrowding.

Pacus follow slightly different rules. They eat far more than is reasonable to provide them. However, they go into the one egg per lifetime cycle after being fed. So feeding them effectively is a means of increasing their numbers. Its generally worth it to set up a pacu pond. All you need to do is make sure their water temp stays steady.

I believe he was specifically talking about wild critters while you're specifically talking about tamed critters, which only makes things more confusing.