Wild Critters dying off.

[cainboy]

If this was in the patch notes, my apologies, I must have missed it.

I've been focused on my space stuff *(petrol boiler + oxygen liquifier) for over 100 cycles, and noticed my food going down faster and faster, *(2mil to 500,000), so I took a look at my base to find a few problems: shrooms were too warm.
All my hatch ranches were empty,
My pacu aquarium was empty,
My back up hatches room was nearly empty
The only living creatures in my base was 1 hatch from my back up hatch room, and 8 from my back up back up hatch room.
*(next to 0 dreckos are alive in the wild anymore >.>)

While I've never cared about the shine bugs that seem to starve out, I really was making use of my wild pacu farm. *(which had worked in prior playthroughs as i recall)

*(I still have around 600tons of coal, so i'm not pressed for that, but my eggshell and meat farming have ground to a halt.

seeing as how basically every wild creature in my map has died, do wild critters now die off from being /starved/cramped/glum/hungry/ etc?

What are some of your solutions to keeping the critters around and helpful?

Do you have a system that effeciently removes excess eggs without completely wiping out the ranch?

[Star Paladin]

Ya, I am trying my 6th try at a colony, and was really going to start farming. I was able to get a couple hatches near me before they died, but all the pufts are dead and gone long before I could get to them.

[wolfdwg]

Hatches are quite easy to farm. The trick is to set critter drop offs to 5 and Auto Wrangle. For that you will need a "kill room" and incubators, Kill room's critter automation set to 19 to drown them :) 5 hatches in the largest ranch will breed well

[wolfdwg]

Never had wild critters die off. Make Combat priority never. Except for that perhaps a temperature issue; heat can get out of control quickly

[cainboy]

Originally posted by Star Paladin:

Ya, I am trying my 6th try at a colony, and was really going to start farming. I was able to get a couple hatches near me before they died, but all the pufts are dead and gone long before I could get to them.

Keep going! Every base you build you'll figure more out and soon be doing awesome things.
I think it took me 10 ish bases before I really started getting the hang of the general game, and another 5+ before I got into ranching, or more complex stuff.

just make sure there is either a feeder, or food on the ground for hatches, and they will eat.

[cainboy]

Originally posted by wolfdwg:

Hatches are quite easy to farm. The trick is to set critter drop offs to 5 and Auto Wrangle. For that you will need a "kill room" and incubators, Kill room's critter automation set to 19 to drown them :) 5 hatches in the largest ranch will breed well

Originally posted by wolfdwg:

Never had wild critters die off. Make Combat priority never. Except for that perhaps a temperature issue; heat can get out of control quickly

I find even with 4 hatches, the reproduction rate outstrips egg hatching /autowrangling speed.
meaning its just better to have 8 hatches *(maximum count for a 96 tile ranch before glum)*, and try to deal with the eggs.
While I can keep up the happiness and reproduction/production rates on all 8 hatches per ranch, my issue with them is that autosweepers will remove the eggs so fast, that everything ends up gone *(why I use a back up ranch). or floor droppers remove it, but then need auto wrangling*(better, but uglier)

Combat should only ever activate if you set them to attack, and my wild Pacus were in an aquarium that my dupes could not reach. *(also my primary hatch killer zone, with an autosweeper to grab meat and shells.)

My biggest issue, is that for unexplained reasons, Wild Critters are dying off, without reproducing a single egg. I've NEVER had this happen before, so I wondered if it was in the patches, or someone else experienced it before. I lost over 60 pacu, and 20 hatches that were wild and set up to be reserves in case my ranching went south.... but this... this hurts.

I suppose I could shift to vole farming for meat, and ignore pacu eggs for lime, since once my space industry is up and running, I should be pulling in roughly 6.1 tons of steel every 8 cycles. meaning I wont need the shells for lime.... and I could swap over to pepper bread/barbeque instead of shrooms for food if I build a proper farm....

But the Wild Critter issue is just vexxing to me.

[wolfdwg]

Perhaps, the autosweepers are doing away with the eggs? Just a guess, I never use automation for ranching; except the kill room

[wolfdwg]

Drekos are easy and require little effort with an "open" ranch

[Angpaur]

Critters are dying off because of being "cramped". This happens when there are eggs in an already overcrowded room or that will be overcrowded when eggs hatch. If cramped than even a wild critter will not lay an egg before dying. This unfortunately also applies to pacus. You just need to move the eggs to other room and invent a way to move critters back to main room, when they hatch.