Don't understand the territory based system at all

[dany_shady]

Seriously, i've been doing a lot of test in sandbox in an enormous enclosure and i dont understand at all how territory system works, whats the point of this new system and i think it has a few bugs or errors:

- First, the bugs: if i drop a dinosaur from the hatchery with helicopters the dino creates it's territory from the hatchery to where i dropped it. It's like if while they were flying asleep in the helicopter they were claiming the territory at the same time. I Attach a few images of this issue if you dont understand what i mean.

- No matter if a dino has all their needs covered in his territory, it will continue to expands its territory infinitely, wich ends having troubles with different dinos even if the enclosure is enormous and they have enough space to live separatelly.

- If a dino is having troubles coexisting whit other species, but you have provide another place in the same enclosure in wich they can live happy, with all their needs covered they dont explore the enclosure to find this new place (sometimes it's very close to them and still don't claim it as their new territory) to avoid cohexistence troubles. I mean if i can provide a way to avoid social troubles why my dinos ends entering a territory they dont like and don't abbandon it inmediatelly?

- Oh another thing: if a social dino separates from its group enough time it becomes a new alpha and becomes lonely instead of joining again with its pals? what???

- So, what's the point of having this new territory based system if all the dinos ends mixed together and don't stay in the territory they preffer, or don't explore to find their one and stay in it?

 

[Jens Erik]

Hey Dany! Thank you for all your questions I'll do my best to answer them with as much detail as I can.

- First, the bugs: if i drop a dinosaur from the hatchery with helicopters the dino creates it's territory from the hatchery to where i dropped it. It's like if while they were flying asleep in the helicopter they were claiming the territory at the same time. I Attach a few images of this issue if you dont understand what i mean.

Hey, thanks for flagging this. This is definitely not supposed to happen. After you've transported a dinosaur, it should begin to spread its territory from the point of touchdown, not from the original Hatchery. If you haven't already, please submit a report about this in the Issue Tracker.

- No matter if a dino has all their needs covered in his territory, it will continue to expands its territory infinitely, wich ends having troubles with different dinos even if the enclosure is enormous and they have enough space to live separatelly.

Your dinosaurs should eventually reach an equilibrium, but this also depends on the number of dinosaurs within a single group. So it shouldn't expand infinitely, but a group's territory can be very large, depending on the species and the number of individuals within a group.

- If a dino is having troubles coexisting whit other species, but you have provide another place in the same enclosure in wich they can live happy, with all their needs covered they dont explore the enclosure to find this new place (sometimes it's very close to them and still don't claim it as their new territory) to avoid cohexistence troubles. I mean if i can provide a way to avoid social troubles why my dinos ends entering a territory they dont like and don't abbandon it inmediatelly?

The dinosaurs won't always avoid coexisting with animals they are not compatible with. They're still animals, and won't think rationally. It is possible to increase their cohabitation and tolerance stats with genetic modifications, there may still be some fights or overlapping territories.

- Oh another thing: if a social dino separates from its group enough time it becomes a new alpha and becomes lonely instead of joining again with its pals? what???

Sometimes dinosaurs will separate from the group and become lonely. This also happened in the previous game. While they do live in a group inside the same enclosure, they're still animals and will sometimes wander off. I recommend adjusting the size of an enclosure so they don't separate.

Hope that helped clear a few things up!

 

[dany_shady]

Hey, thanks for flagging this. This is definitely not supposed to happen. After you've transported a dinosaur, it should begin to spread its territory from the point of touchdown, not from the original Hatchery. If you haven't already, please submit a report about this in the Issue Tracker.

Ok, I will do.

Your dinosaurs should eventually reach an equilibrium, but this also depends on the number of dinosaurs within a single group. So it shouldn't expand infinitely, but a group's territory can be very large, depending on the species and the number of individuals within a group.

The Problem is that dinos don't find an equilibrium, they keep expanding and moving for the entire enclosure for ever. We don´t have any tools to control the territory of a dinosaur and it's awful. You said the territory expanse depends on the size of the group or the diferrent especies. But what tools do we have in the game to know this? right now this useful data seems totally aleatory.

A good solution for this and a way to make the territory system an useful and fun game mechanic, could be that if a dino only likes one type of plant ONLY eats that type of plants (righ now paleobotany only affects comfort), so when he is hungry he is forced to move to his original territory to eat, wich seems very logic. with this better implementation of the palobotanic feature we could "separate" group of dinos in the same enclosure using the paleobotanic feature.

With this feature in mind you could add more management to the enclosures because if we don't plan good the different food resources, the dinos could end up mixed together (like how it is right now)

The dinosaurs won't always avoid coexisting with animals they are not compatible with. They're still animals, and won't think rationally. It is possible to increase their cohabitation and tolerance stats with genetic modifications, there may still be some fights or overlapping territories.

Again, another example of a good mechanic poorly executed. For example with gene modifications (modesty) a dino should have smaller territory (right now only affects comfort). if the game at least told us wich is the maximum territory a dino could have, with gene modifications we could manipulate it too.

In sumary: as you can see right now the territory mechanic doesn't explain nothing, everything seems random and not like an actual gameplay feature we can manage. There are a lot of ways in wich the territory of a dinosaur could be a fun management feature. I know you can do it better and funnier.

Thx!

 

[Lizard_Xing]

Have you tried maxing out the 'humble' genetic modification? That should reduce the space satisfaction threshold, not sure if it affects territory though.

 

[Jura Arena]

also tested so much in sandbox with big exhibits or just no fences and the result is: it just don't work. infinite expanding territories, pathfinding from hell (carnivores on the hunt just dancing around or stop every few seconds). also let a complete map over night with only herbivores running and at the morning every species has makes the whole map their territorie.
At the moment it seems to be the best size is the circle from the outpost building things you have to put inside the exhibits.

Another thing:

The dinosaurs won't always avoid coexisting with animals they are not compatible with. They're still animals, and won't think rationally. It is possible to increase their cohabitation and tolerance stats with genetic modifications, there may still be some fights or overlapping territories.

But real animals like lions or something like that, after a successful hunt for a buffalo, wouldn't bother to come face to face to every single other buffalo in the herd and roar at them. This is what is currently happening in the game and as a result the loot rots and the robbers die of starvation. No animal in the world would behave like that.
Things like that just completely destroys the immersion

 

[DeadmanIII]

But real animals like lions or something like that, after a successful hunt for a buffalo, wouldn't bother to come face to face to every single other buffalo in the herd and roar at them. This is what is currently happening in the game and as a result the loot rots and the robbers die of starvation. No animal in the world would behave like that.
Things like that just completely destroys the immersion

They also aren't real animals; they are coded sprites that can and should be able to be manipulated at a whim. Adding to your comment, not criticizing it.

 

[Locknight500]

Hey Dany! Thank you for all your questions I'll do my best to answer them with as much detail as I can.

Hey, thanks for flagging this. This is definitely not supposed to happen. After you've transported a dinosaur, it should begin to spread its territory from the point of touchdown, not from the original Hatchery. If you haven't already, please submit a report about this in the Issue Tracker.

Your dinosaurs should eventually reach an equilibrium, but this also depends on the number of dinosaurs within a single group. So it shouldn't expand infinitely, but a group's territory can be very large, depending on the species and the number of individuals within a group.

The dinosaurs won't always avoid coexisting with animals they are not compatible with. They're still animals, and won't think rationally. It is possible to increase their cohabitation and tolerance stats with genetic modifications, there may still be some fights or overlapping territories.

Sometimes dinosaurs will separate from the group and become lonely. This also happened in the previous game. While they do live in a group inside the same enclosure, they're still animals and will sometimes wander off. I recommend adjusting the size of an enclosure so they don't separate.

Hope that helped clear a few things up!

So for animals that can cohabitate such as allosaurus and metricanthasaurus, why did they start killing each other when they had all their needs at 100% comfort. Also can you add cohabitation between some herbivores and carnivores

 

[dany_shady]

Have you tried maxing out the 'humble' genetic modification? That should reduce the space satisfaction threshold, not sure if it affects territory though.

No man, that's exactly what i'm saying, even if you modify the genome it only affects to the comfort. Right now the territory based system seems useless as a gameplay mechanic, and i don't understand why when it could be a very fun feature for the game.

 

[Jens Erik]

So for animals that can cohabitate such as allosaurus and metricanthasaurus, why did they start killing each other when they had all their needs at 100% comfort.

Hey Locknight! It means specifically that they don't affect each other's cohabitation meter. There could still be fights.

 

[Mjmannella]

It would be nice if that meant they wouldn't fight each other.

 

[dany_shady]

Hey Locknight! It means specifically that they don't affect each other's cohabitation meter. There could still be fights.

Even if you modify the genes to have tolerant dinos? The answer is NO. And it doesn't make sense at all.

And if it genes only aplies to comfort, don't you think if a battle has to do with territoy instead with cohabitation, the loser should find another territory if posible, and the winner could have a bigger one or keep his? That's what fighting for territory in nature really means.

Frontier, with this post i hope you could see why the territory feature righ now is useless, bad explained and bad executed. Not everything in this game has to affect comfort ONLY. The moment you'll understand this you could breathe new life into dinosaurs and make the game more interesting.