Some kind words, and also scarecrows: The future of automation?

[Recila]

So first of all - I'm having a ridiculously good time with this game. I love how silly the pets are, I love how each and every machine has a face and they are all unsure or mildly judgmental - and most of all, I love seeing number go up. It makes my little monkey brain happy. I am forever delighted to watch the pets bobble up an elevator, and know I have completed a day's work. The automation we've got so early is lovely - and I'm especially looking at Gardeners and Gatherbots, my beloveds. One small farm can feed a whole many-layer, unoptimized and unnecessarily complicated factory. and I get to ship them out for that sweet, sweet number-go-up. I love how absurd this game is, I really do, and I can't wait to see what happens when I finally finish feeding the Pit. Going by other comments, I expect a massive Cuddler. I will be so very sad if I do not get a Cuddle-gantuar crammed into my inventory and / or the Space Elevator.

Now, my actual question: How do scarecrows work? It looks like pets just keep running forever given the chance, and measuring it out led to... inconclusive results. I've figured I can just funnel them from the assembler to a small teleporter pen or larger feeding arena and they might eventually calm down... but it's fairly inconsistent. Is there a random timer, or is it pure line of sight? Timer + line of sight + distance + more numbers for enhanced pet-scaring? We've all made a sploofer scooper with the little mushy boys and a gatherbot, but how do I get a cuddler lovingly spooked into sprinting halfway across the realm to pretty-please stop screaming so it can be profited off of in a way that industrial mills can only dream of given to a loving a new home where it'll be taken care of forever?

[Another Yeti]

Scarecrows are a little inconsistent at the moment. The actual behavior is: pet sees scarecrow -> if pet can be scared (some pets can't), run away at frightened speed.

The weird scarecrow behavior is that pets actually need to be facing them to see them, so they can easily ignore them. I may get rid of that line of sight requirement in the future, so that it's easier to automate.