Your Feature Request / Idea
First, the good news: we have herds, sort of, and herd leaders. I say "sort of" because most animals keep scattering too much from each other to make a really immersive herding experience, and don't get me started on clipping -shudders-. But, hey, a couple of months ago, they didn't even know each other
So, having pointed out the two most obvious problems (roaming distance and clipping), here's the suggestion to further develop this feature:
As natural and deep-rooted the instinct for carnivores is “to fight”, equally natural and potent is herbivore’s “to flight”. The thing is, animals who live within a herd not only rely on each other for socializing and breed, but also to survive: whenever a herd-member enters a panic state, it quickly becomes contagious.
Suggested implementation:
Trigger. All kind of menacing stimuli, based on proximity:
Predators
Carnivores’ roars
Jeep’s horn
Fire
Thunder
Tornados
Etc
The problem is, certain stimuli wouldn’t trigger enough answer all the time: for instance, I’ve notice the loser in a dominance fight usually flees in panic, but that shouldn’t trigger an stampede; also, a predator unable to chase the herd would likely be soon "forgotten".
So, I can think of 2 possible solutions:
1. Either make exceptions from some of the above examples (the panic resulting from loosing a dominance fight, for instance).
2. Having a “panic meter”, hidden to the player.
I propose having a “panic meter”, since this would nicely help managing edgy situations, but I suppose the above one would also work pretty fine.
About this second option, however, there would be one for each animal, although maybe it could work having one for the entire herd, but working in the following way:
Every individual animal lives in a state of "alert"/"tension", except the big sauropods who “fear nothing” so, while they are awake, their “panic meter” should rise to, say, 10%.
Every time an individual animal comes in range of a menacing stimuli, another % is added based on the relevance of said stimuli (carnivores, fire and direct life threats should be the highest), as well as it’s closeness.
Then, whenever a limit is reached (lowest for the smallest and most defenseless animals), the “flight” behavior is triggered, also “sending” a % of the original panic’s % to the nearby herbivores.
I am no good at maths but predators should always cause stampeding, while other stimuli, as the jeep’s horn, should only rarely trigger it (for instance, when used right beside an animal, for a couple of secs).
Step 1. The member of the herd which is closest to the menacing stimuli enters “panic state”, automatically triggering an “alarm cry”. Here would hit the “panic meter”’s mark suggested above.
Step 2. Right after the above, it would howl an “alarm cry”, thus spreading panic among the closest members of the herd which, in turn, would begin the Step 1 before proceeding to this one.
Step 3. The running begins, in the direction opposite the original source; with only physical obstacles as walls or buildings to avoid; any other obstacle, from other dinosaurs to light fences, water, humans, etc. will get trampled.
The stampeding only ends when the menacing stimuli is thrice the “safe distance” (that minimum distance in which it would be detected) away OR the whole herd enters a forest (which resets the panic meter/state).
First, the good news: we have herds, sort of, and herd leaders. I say "sort of" because most animals keep scattering too much from each other to make a really immersive herding experience, and don't get me started on clipping -shudders-. But, hey, a couple of months ago, they didn't even know each other
So, having pointed out the two most obvious problems (roaming distance and clipping), here's the suggestion to further develop this feature:
As natural and deep-rooted the instinct for carnivores is “to fight”, equally natural and potent is herbivore’s “to flight”. The thing is, animals who live within a herd not only rely on each other for socializing and breed, but also to survive: whenever a herd-member enters a panic state, it quickly becomes contagious.
Suggested implementation:
Trigger. All kind of menacing stimuli, based on proximity:
Predators
Carnivores’ roars
Jeep’s horn
Fire
Thunder
Tornados
Etc
The problem is, certain stimuli wouldn’t trigger enough answer all the time: for instance, I’ve notice the loser in a dominance fight usually flees in panic, but that shouldn’t trigger an stampede; also, a predator unable to chase the herd would likely be soon "forgotten".
So, I can think of 2 possible solutions:
1. Either make exceptions from some of the above examples (the panic resulting from loosing a dominance fight, for instance).
2. Having a “panic meter”, hidden to the player.
I propose having a “panic meter”, since this would nicely help managing edgy situations, but I suppose the above one would also work pretty fine.
About this second option, however, there would be one for each animal, although maybe it could work having one for the entire herd, but working in the following way:
Every individual animal lives in a state of "alert"/"tension", except the big sauropods who “fear nothing” so, while they are awake, their “panic meter” should rise to, say, 10%.
Every time an individual animal comes in range of a menacing stimuli, another % is added based on the relevance of said stimuli (carnivores, fire and direct life threats should be the highest), as well as it’s closeness.
Then, whenever a limit is reached (lowest for the smallest and most defenseless animals), the “flight” behavior is triggered, also “sending” a % of the original panic’s % to the nearby herbivores.
I am no good at maths but predators should always cause stampeding, while other stimuli, as the jeep’s horn, should only rarely trigger it (for instance, when used right beside an animal, for a couple of secs).
Step 1. The member of the herd which is closest to the menacing stimuli enters “panic state”, automatically triggering an “alarm cry”. Here would hit the “panic meter”’s mark suggested above.
Step 2. Right after the above, it would howl an “alarm cry”, thus spreading panic among the closest members of the herd which, in turn, would begin the Step 1 before proceeding to this one.
Step 3. The running begins, in the direction opposite the original source; with only physical obstacles as walls or buildings to avoid; any other obstacle, from other dinosaurs to light fences, water, humans, etc. will get trampled.
The stampeding only ends when the menacing stimuli is thrice the “safe distance” (that minimum distance in which it would be detected) away OR the whole herd enters a forest (which resets the panic meter/state).
