I have heard the occasional request for a cow as an additional live bait request before, but no one really seems to talk much about the feeders. I understand why people want the cow given the feeding scene in Jurassic Park and it existed in JPOG, but I think there is some small gameplay element to be derived from more options. I also want to preface this topic by noting its related to and an iteration of an idea I have been grappling with a while evidenced by my addendums in this thread: Disease, Injuries, & Scars
A brief recap; I have been trying to solve an issue with the relevancy of corpses in an enclosure. Right now, you just send a transport helicopter and remove it immediately without a thought, that makes it kind of pointless, just another action to keep you busy, but there is no meaning attached. Today, I will take this further by picking up a loose thread I briefly touched on and that is the live bait feeder we have in the game and how to make it more deserving of inclusion in the game other than: "JPOG did it!"
New live bait additions:
Okay, now we have a few new options aesthetically, that's good as decorations always are a positive to have. However, I wanted to connect these animals to an expansion of dinosaur hunting behaviors. If I can successfully show everyone the gains in hunting behavior it will have rippling effects to help resolve the corpses problem and provide another vector for injury and disease.
Immediately, you'll recognize we got larger more stout animals and more nimble ones, this distinction is intentional. For large carnivores they obviously require more meat given their large bulky frames, that is the primary role of the cow and the boar. Whereas the hare and pheasant are small, swift critters more suited for small carnivores particular tastes. Those are the basics, but there are small variations among the live prey and the animals intended to feed upon them.
The Cow
The cow is rather... slow, making it an ideal meal for medium/large carnivores and a suitable replacement for a carnivore feeder in its own right. However, the cow is naturally pretty expensive to keep stock replenished. But, what if a cow is given to a Deinonychus instead? You find out pretty quickly that a single cow can actually feed 2-3 packmates, suddenly that poor slow beast of burden fills a different niche than before. Animals with a Large Appetite will love it!
The Boar
How about the boar? This a big animal, not quite the size of the cow, but its tough and lean. Some animals want a challenge with their prey, the boar provides this distraction while supplying ample meat. The boar is the most expensive live bait, however, Unfit animals will get frustrated with it quickly.
The Pheasant
Who doesn't like chicken... or chicken adjacent? Eating this feathery friend might make your dinos cannibals, but it won't stand around waiting. The pheasant is light on its feet and small enough to avoid drawing the ire of medium/large carnivores. It tends to be the meal of preference for small carnivores though it's rather inexpensive and doesn't last long. Pheasants are more ideal if deployed in numbers to avoid infighting and stringent competition among your dinos. You'll want to avoid overindulging though as they can cause Dehydration.
The Hare
If the cow is slow in body and mind, the hare is the opposite. The hare is exceedingly agile and difficult to pin down; bolting across the enclosure any animal will need to be Fit if it plans to snag a meal. This prey is a delicacy, fairly expensive, and offers precious little meat. However, chasing down a hare is a reward in itself, for the swiftest hunters delight in the thrill of the hunt while putting on an entertaining performance for your guests.
The Goat
What happened to the goat? Our furry friend is still here, but it may have lost its luster beside its new companions. The most basic of defaults, the goat exists to be serviceable to meet prey needs at a minimum until you can afford to tailor prey for your prehistoric pals. The goat is the true moderate: price, fitness, and meat provided. However, you'll find he isn't the Rex's favorite meal on the menu anymore and our cloven hoofed friend bears a nasty curse. Large carnivores that subsist on goats are prone to becoming Malnourished.
The genetics system's vastly ignored appetite and drought modifications suddenly have more weight to them and with the least likely specimens you would have ever imagined, the carnivores. Moreover, I decided to incorporate the fitness trait into the live prey, so that we play well into the hunting system that Frontier has slowly been improving for dinosaur-on-dinosaur interactions.
Now we get instant visual variety in our feeder options, widely considered "useless stats" suddenly have relevancy, and hunting more accurately applies to live bait rather than pure dinosaur-on-dinosaur interactivity. When we look at the effects on the dinosaurs themselves its honestly pretty vast. I have gone ahead and introduced malnourishment as a proper negative affliction, your animals aren't necessarily starving if malnourished in the conventional sense. Animals will still lose health, but won't fall below 50% the way starvation may ultimately kill them, instead this will make them extremely disease prone. Dehydration, on the other hand, already exists, so I just wanted to give it more relevant scenarios in which it might occur while also deterring players from wanting to spam the inexpensive pheasants and goats.
This system is pretty modular from this point forward, so I left some room here if the idea were to carry weight. The next logical step would then be to give each animal a preference in prey, whether it be a large or small carnivore every species has at least 3 options with the goat working for everyone. Two cliché examples: The Rex has a preference for Boars, but will eat Cows and Goats if that is what is available. The Velociraptor prefers Hares; but will settle for Pheasants or Goats except there is a caveat, dromaeosaurs are unique in that they will gladly eat any of the live prey provided they have the numbers/fitness to hunt down the larger specimens.
Watch out for other unique preferences though such as select medium/large carnivores that prefer swift prey, but the live bait options don't always align properly, so you might have to think more creatively like maybe a Struthi might fit the bill instead. A Majungasaurus is a known cannibal, so maybe keeping fewer of them together is preferable as their favored prey is each other. More possibilities include scavenging prey over straightforward hunts. Pairing a scavenger with a liked carnivore species might be a useful strategy here. The second carnivore species will create carcasses as it hunts prey inadvertently supporting the scavenging animal and its meal preferences.
Once you add this system, bam, you have already done the work needed to start adding dinosaur prey preferences. These preferences will govern AI hunting priorities favoring a liked dinosaur prey item first and foremost. To ensure dinosaurs remain threats the player can take this into account while building and by default AI priorities will be:
[ Dinosaur > Guest > Live Bait ]
Each prey item can also be associated with a heightened susceptibility to particular diseases. A diet of primarily pheasants might mean Avian Pox is more likely to trigger, so it can pay to have more than 1 bait type or to change things up occasionally. Further, you will have another tool in your roster to help narrow down what might be causing certain diseases for your animals without the overbearing UI ordering you around like a time-strapped mobile player.
There will constantly be carcasses in your enclosures with this variety of live bait in them, so disease has a stronger mechanism to spread. You might then intentionally start experimenting with using other dinosaurs as live prey and find the system accepts and rewards certain combinations. Now you won't want to remove corpses right away since they are feeding your animals and satisfying their hunting needs. Comfort will noticeably become an issue if you ignore prey needs which can lead to breakouts. So, a better waste disposal system is more essential in this scenario... ahem, going to shamelessly promote my Compy thread: Potential of Compsognathus
Then here again is another synergy, the Compy also feeds back into this system as it eats the decaying corpses to clean up the exhibits while being a monstrous little pathogen carrier itself. This sets off a very Jurassic-themed chain reaction of player decisions building on top of one another, combating lesser problems they inadvertently introduced only to be setting in motion the steps of a disease-generating machine. This is a smart gameplay loop, Frontier just needs to entice the player to take that initial step and force a little mistake to guide the player with an invisible hand to the most predictable solution the player will seek to use. This is an engaging multi-step gameplay scenario, the exact kind of thing I talk about thread after thread, after thread.
A brief recap; I have been trying to solve an issue with the relevancy of corpses in an enclosure. Right now, you just send a transport helicopter and remove it immediately without a thought, that makes it kind of pointless, just another action to keep you busy, but there is no meaning attached. Today, I will take this further by picking up a loose thread I briefly touched on and that is the live bait feeder we have in the game and how to make it more deserving of inclusion in the game other than: "JPOG did it!"
New live bait additions:
- Cow
- Boar
- Pheasant
- Hare
Okay, now we have a few new options aesthetically, that's good as decorations always are a positive to have. However, I wanted to connect these animals to an expansion of dinosaur hunting behaviors. If I can successfully show everyone the gains in hunting behavior it will have rippling effects to help resolve the corpses problem and provide another vector for injury and disease.
Immediately, you'll recognize we got larger more stout animals and more nimble ones, this distinction is intentional. For large carnivores they obviously require more meat given their large bulky frames, that is the primary role of the cow and the boar. Whereas the hare and pheasant are small, swift critters more suited for small carnivores particular tastes. Those are the basics, but there are small variations among the live prey and the animals intended to feed upon them.
The Cow
The cow is rather... slow, making it an ideal meal for medium/large carnivores and a suitable replacement for a carnivore feeder in its own right. However, the cow is naturally pretty expensive to keep stock replenished. But, what if a cow is given to a Deinonychus instead? You find out pretty quickly that a single cow can actually feed 2-3 packmates, suddenly that poor slow beast of burden fills a different niche than before. Animals with a Large Appetite will love it!
The Boar
How about the boar? This a big animal, not quite the size of the cow, but its tough and lean. Some animals want a challenge with their prey, the boar provides this distraction while supplying ample meat. The boar is the most expensive live bait, however, Unfit animals will get frustrated with it quickly.
The Pheasant
Who doesn't like chicken... or chicken adjacent? Eating this feathery friend might make your dinos cannibals, but it won't stand around waiting. The pheasant is light on its feet and small enough to avoid drawing the ire of medium/large carnivores. It tends to be the meal of preference for small carnivores though it's rather inexpensive and doesn't last long. Pheasants are more ideal if deployed in numbers to avoid infighting and stringent competition among your dinos. You'll want to avoid overindulging though as they can cause Dehydration.
The Hare
If the cow is slow in body and mind, the hare is the opposite. The hare is exceedingly agile and difficult to pin down; bolting across the enclosure any animal will need to be Fit if it plans to snag a meal. This prey is a delicacy, fairly expensive, and offers precious little meat. However, chasing down a hare is a reward in itself, for the swiftest hunters delight in the thrill of the hunt while putting on an entertaining performance for your guests.
The Goat
What happened to the goat? Our furry friend is still here, but it may have lost its luster beside its new companions. The most basic of defaults, the goat exists to be serviceable to meet prey needs at a minimum until you can afford to tailor prey for your prehistoric pals. The goat is the true moderate: price, fitness, and meat provided. However, you'll find he isn't the Rex's favorite meal on the menu anymore and our cloven hoofed friend bears a nasty curse. Large carnivores that subsist on goats are prone to becoming Malnourished.
The genetics system's vastly ignored appetite and drought modifications suddenly have more weight to them and with the least likely specimens you would have ever imagined, the carnivores. Moreover, I decided to incorporate the fitness trait into the live prey, so that we play well into the hunting system that Frontier has slowly been improving for dinosaur-on-dinosaur interactions.
Now we get instant visual variety in our feeder options, widely considered "useless stats" suddenly have relevancy, and hunting more accurately applies to live bait rather than pure dinosaur-on-dinosaur interactivity. When we look at the effects on the dinosaurs themselves its honestly pretty vast. I have gone ahead and introduced malnourishment as a proper negative affliction, your animals aren't necessarily starving if malnourished in the conventional sense. Animals will still lose health, but won't fall below 50% the way starvation may ultimately kill them, instead this will make them extremely disease prone. Dehydration, on the other hand, already exists, so I just wanted to give it more relevant scenarios in which it might occur while also deterring players from wanting to spam the inexpensive pheasants and goats.
This system is pretty modular from this point forward, so I left some room here if the idea were to carry weight. The next logical step would then be to give each animal a preference in prey, whether it be a large or small carnivore every species has at least 3 options with the goat working for everyone. Two cliché examples: The Rex has a preference for Boars, but will eat Cows and Goats if that is what is available. The Velociraptor prefers Hares; but will settle for Pheasants or Goats except there is a caveat, dromaeosaurs are unique in that they will gladly eat any of the live prey provided they have the numbers/fitness to hunt down the larger specimens.
Watch out for other unique preferences though such as select medium/large carnivores that prefer swift prey, but the live bait options don't always align properly, so you might have to think more creatively like maybe a Struthi might fit the bill instead. A Majungasaurus is a known cannibal, so maybe keeping fewer of them together is preferable as their favored prey is each other. More possibilities include scavenging prey over straightforward hunts. Pairing a scavenger with a liked carnivore species might be a useful strategy here. The second carnivore species will create carcasses as it hunts prey inadvertently supporting the scavenging animal and its meal preferences.
Once you add this system, bam, you have already done the work needed to start adding dinosaur prey preferences. These preferences will govern AI hunting priorities favoring a liked dinosaur prey item first and foremost. To ensure dinosaurs remain threats the player can take this into account while building and by default AI priorities will be:
[ Dinosaur > Guest > Live Bait ]
Each prey item can also be associated with a heightened susceptibility to particular diseases. A diet of primarily pheasants might mean Avian Pox is more likely to trigger, so it can pay to have more than 1 bait type or to change things up occasionally. Further, you will have another tool in your roster to help narrow down what might be causing certain diseases for your animals without the overbearing UI ordering you around like a time-strapped mobile player.
There will constantly be carcasses in your enclosures with this variety of live bait in them, so disease has a stronger mechanism to spread. You might then intentionally start experimenting with using other dinosaurs as live prey and find the system accepts and rewards certain combinations. Now you won't want to remove corpses right away since they are feeding your animals and satisfying their hunting needs. Comfort will noticeably become an issue if you ignore prey needs which can lead to breakouts. So, a better waste disposal system is more essential in this scenario... ahem, going to shamelessly promote my Compy thread: Potential of Compsognathus
Then here again is another synergy, the Compy also feeds back into this system as it eats the decaying corpses to clean up the exhibits while being a monstrous little pathogen carrier itself. This sets off a very Jurassic-themed chain reaction of player decisions building on top of one another, combating lesser problems they inadvertently introduced only to be setting in motion the steps of a disease-generating machine. This is a smart gameplay loop, Frontier just needs to entice the player to take that initial step and force a little mistake to guide the player with an invisible hand to the most predictable solution the player will seek to use. This is an engaging multi-step gameplay scenario, the exact kind of thing I talk about thread after thread, after thread.
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