Been loving this game, and the interaction for crafting stations making the game feel more immersive! Hoping this feedback might inspire a similar feel for animals and the eventual animal husbandry update.
Animal Updates:
- Increase adult animal movement speed to be faster than player.
- Faster animal turning to prevent players from staying behind the animal while attacking (takes no damage).
- Make wild animals skittish and run away if the player gets too close.
- Cannot milk or shear wool from wild animals, but can harvest wool from wild sheep corpses.
- Animals defend themselves, their babies, and occasionally their herd mates. Requires sneaking up with ranged weapons rather than outrun and chop to death with primitive hammer.
- An over-hunting (risk of extinction) mechanic, requiring players to be careful about how much they hunt. Game might have a set number of adult animals in the world. Every so often (or in Spring if seasons), babies are spawned in a herd that has at least one male and one female. Babies slowly grow into adults over time, making herds bigger to a certain cap. Killing all the adults puts babies at risk of being eaten by predators without protection, and overall the risk of that herd or even species going extinct. Can purchase extinct animals from trader, but will be extremely expensive.
- New Animal Ideas: Bees, Cats, Dogs, Ducks, Geese, Turkeys, Fish, Small Wild Cat (Lynx?)
Taming:
- Immersive taming by capturing babies early game, and working up to capturing adults late game (more dangerous).
- Require horses to be tamed before riding. Dismount key bind would be lovely.
- Most babies can be captured by picking up, from chicks up to lambs and piglets. Wild-caught baby mammals grow faster if bottle-fed goat milk over cow milk.
Breeding:
- If going with passive breeding (animals reproduce on their own), have pregnancy / egg hatch be chance-based rather than a guarantee to prevent overcrowding and resources being too easy to obtain. QoL idea could be a “contraception” toggle to pause breeding for certain animals.
- If going with active breeding (Minecraft-style of feeding to create baby), have pregnancy / egg hatch be guaranteed to prevent excessive grind and high maintenance, and balance with slower growth. QoL idea could be a breeding UI that displays offspring potential between 2 parents before breeding (if there are traits, colors, etc inherited).
- Gender Icons & Visual Differences - Animals have visual gender differences and gender icons starting as babies (possible bird exception) to make it easier to sort males from females. So you can tell calves apart at birth, or pigs apart while out taming.
- Genetics – Wild-tamed animals produce very little, but selective breeding creates better animals. Example: Breeding black bull to red and white cow. Father’s genes are good milker but bad meat, mother’s genes are average milker but large body for meat. Baby gets a mixed percentage (or range) of both parents’ genes.(credit to Marxell)
- Players can create their own breeds by having consistent-trait offspring for x generations.
- Family Tree: Helps prevent inbreeding, which might lead to bad traits or other negative consequences. Encourages capturing more than just 2 animals of each species, and decent stock is possible with 5 animals (1 male 4 females example — http://www.barbadosblackbelly.…d_this/articles/1_ram.htm)
- Players can create unique combos either by chance or through certain crosses such as Donkey + Horse = Mule or Pig + Pig = Mini Pig chance.
Resource Production & Utility:
- Egg-layers cannot lay more than 1 egg per day, but can lay a range of eggs “per week” (number of eggs / 7 = % chance to lay egg per day). Would love a flock of chickens, rather than be swamped with eggs from one super-bird. 🐓
- Dairy animals are unable to produce milk without breeding first.
- Passive Resources: Eggs (chickens/ducks), Fertile Eggs (all birds), Cow Milk, Goat Milk (used to feed baby mammals), Sheep Wool (cannot shear wild animals)
- Meat: Raw Meat (most animals), Raw Beef (cattle), Raw Fish Fillet (butchered whole fish), Raw Mutton (sheep/goat), Raw Pork (swine), Raw Poultry (butchered whole bird), Raw Venison (deer)
- Meat: Whole [insert animal] - Chicken, Duck, Goose, Turkey, Fish, Hare, and Rat.
- Unique Pelt: Hare Pelt
- Unique Resources: Antlers, Bones, Claws, Fangs, Feathers, Fish Bones, Horns, Shark Teeth, Tusks (boars vs elephants)
- Unique Utility:
- Draft Work: Can plow fields, operate mill (harness), haul lumber sled, pull wagons, and more. (Donkeys —> Cattle & Mules —> Draft Horses)
- Packing: Can store resources in packs for transport, with some species being able to carry more. (Riding Horses —> Draft Horses & Mules —> Donkeys)
- Riding: A source of transportation, with some species being faster and/or with better stamina. (Donkeys —> Draft Horses & Mules —> Riding Horses)
Looking forward to the husbandry update!
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Animal Resource Math - Top Producers of the 1800’s (considering livestock have to be tamed first).
Chickens/Ducks:
- Poor Layers / Meat Birds: 50-80 eggs per year (14% - 22% chance per day)
- Average Layers: 100-120 eggs per year (27% - 33% chance per day)
- Good Layers: 130-160 eggs per year (36% - 44% chance per day)
- Excellent Layers: 180-220 eggs per year for chickens (49% - 60% chance per day) and 160-180 eggs per year for ducks (44% - 49% chance).
- Record Layers: 310 eggs per year for chickens (85% chance per day) and 230 eggs per year for ducks (63% chance per day).
- So a poor laying hen would only lay up to 2 eggs each week, while a record laying hen might lay up to 6 eggs per week.
Dairy Cattle:
- Poor Milker: about ½ gallon per day (non-meat breeds)
- Average Milker: about ¾ -1 gallon per day (non-meat breeds)
- Top Milker: about 1 ½ - 2 gallons per day (non-meat breeds)
- Record Milker: about 2 ½ gallons per day
- Cow Butter Math:
- Milk to Cream Ratio: 1 gallon milk = 1 pint of cream (& 7 pints milk)
- Cream to Butter Ratio: 1 pint cream = 5oz butter (1/3lb) --> 1 stick of butter = 4 oz --> 1 gal cow milk = ~ 1.3 sticks of butter
- A poor producing cow could make just over 1/2 stick of butter each day, but a record producer could make over 3 sticks of butter each day.
Dairy Goats:
- Poor Milker: about ½ - ¾ quarts per day (about 16oz - 24oz per day)
- Average Milker: about 1 - 1 ½ quarts per day (about 32oz - 48oz per day)
- Top Milker: about 2 quarts per day (about 64oz per day)
- Record Milker: about 2 ½ quarts per day (about 80oz per day)
- Goat Butter Math:
- Milk to Cream Ratio: 3 qts milk = 1 cup cream (1/4 quart)
- Cream to Butter Ratio: 1/4 qt cream = .5 cups of butter (4oz) = 1 stick butter
- A poor producing goat could make 1 stick of butter each week, while a record producer could make just over 1 stick of butter each day.
Sheep Wool:
- Poor Producers: .18 - 1.68 pounds per year (about 3oz - 27oz per year)
- Average Producers: about 1.95 - 2.43 pounds per year (about 31oz - 39oz per year)
- Good Producers: about 2.68 - 3.28 pounds per year (about 43oz - 53oz per year)
- Record Producers: 3.62 pounds per year (about 58oz per year)
- Wool Math (taken from a weaver):
- Grease Wool (right off the sheep) to Clean Wool: 2 pounds grease : 1 pound clean
- Clean Wool to Hanks: 1 pound wool = 60 hanks of standard worsted yarn (1 hank = 560 yards)
- Clean Wool to Yarn Yards: 1 pound wool = 33,600 yards of yarn
- Yarn to Fabric: 2.4 yards of yarn = 1 yard of fabric (1 fabric bolt = 200 yards - 60” x 40yds)
- Small Men’s Tunic = 1,760 yards fabric
- Grease Wool to Small Men’s Tunic: 4oz grease wool = 2oz clean wool = 7.5 hanks / 4224 yards of yarn = 1760 yards of fabric = 1 small men’s tunic
- A poor producing sheep wouldn’t be able to make a single tunic each year, but a record producer could make about 14 (rounded down).
