Fences

[Lumin]

How about letting towns build a fence to keep out animals? Required materials would be an appropriate amount wood or stone. (Maybe reeds could be an option too, but realistically you'd need a <i>lot</i> for any kind of strength.)

I don't know if it would technically count as a machine or a landmark or what, but it's sole function would be to sit on the objects page and reduce the likelihood of an animal attack.

My thinking on this is that while making long journeys without any healing food or protection <i>should</i> be dangerous, towns ought to be able to provide a reasonable degree of safety to their farmers and gatherers.

The only tool required would be a hammer. At first I was thinking a shovel would be needed to dig holes for the fence posts, but seeing as the places where animals pose the most threat are primitive communities that just seems unfair. (Unless we finally get a shovel that's easier to make...surely even in the Stone Age people were able to dig holes....)

[kabl00ey]

You've been playing too much Civilization! Town walls, town walls!

Good idea, though.

[Racetyme]

Animals still need to be able to be in the place, the fence should just reduce the odds of an attack. I still don't like this though, if a community wants to keep out animals, kill them. The way the game is designed each location covers a huge area, how else do you account for the number of things that can be gathered in, say, Seatown Lakeside.

[Lumin]

Animals still need to be able to be in the place, the fence should just reduce the odds of an attack.

Exactly. I never meant that animals should be keft out completely.

And in some places population control just isn't feasible. We're talking a <i>lot</i> of very large, dangerous animals, only a handful of people, and no iron to speak of.

[Nick]

Survival of the fittest. If you have more animals than people and no weapons, you should die, not complain on the forums.

Two thumbs down for this suggestion.

[Racetyme]

I'm with Nick.

[Lumin]

Why are people even spawning on these new lands and in some of these foreign language areas then, if their chars were never meant to survive? (And instead of going through all the trouble of taking away natural healing, safe travel, etc. to finish killing them off, why not just save yourselves the effort and change the spawning patterns?)

[Neuman]

Given that I think this is a good idea, I'd like to put this back at the top, instead of making a new topic. I personally think there should be 4 types of fences. General Fence (In), General Fence (Out), "Animal" Fence (In), "Animal" Fence (Out).

The (In) fences would keep animals in, and (Out) fences would keep animals out. Obviously, flying animals can't be contained with fences. And very small and very large animals can just walk under or over the General fences.

You could only build an "Animal" Fence if you have that animal in the location. The word "Animal" would be replaced with the animal you make the fence for.

[tiddy ogg]

Some of this fencing thing may well come with animal domestication, but to get back off topic...
As stated above, it's survival of the fittest, ie the most alert. This may be against the spirit of the game, but active players can predict animal attack times and make sure they are indoors at the time, assuming there is a building, of course, then come out and continue their farming etc. OK it'll slow the work if you must keep stopping to run and hide, but being mauled by a tiger kinda slows you down anyway.

[Sicofonte]

Survival of the fittest


The humans are the fittest beings in Earth, just cause we know how to build and use things (like fences).

So, if to build a fence is possible (and it is), not to build it is just a bad decision.


So three thumbs up for this suggestion.



Following Neumans' steps:

I will left out the "(In) fences" (which I'd prefer to call farmyards or synonym), and focus in the "(Out) fences", that I will call just fences.

I would classify the animals in a few types (aerial animals, small/medium/big land animals, and small/medium/big marine animals).

The fences would surround a town, avoiding the animals to get into. A special kind of door is supposed to be there, allowing the cantrians to get in and out without a key, but avoiding or reducing the chances of animals to attack (if this door has to be opened or closed, and someone forgets to close the door...).

The fences would be classified depending on materials and size:

- Short reed fence: slight reduction of the attack chance of medium land animals.
- Tall reed fence: slight reduction of the attack chance of medium and big land animals.

- Short wood fence: medium reduction of the attack chance of medium land animals.
- Tall wood fence: medium reduction of the attack chance of medium and big land animals.


Small animals (insects, small rodents and reptiles) are always unaffected.

No stone fences, it would be a wall.

[The Sociologist]

I would rather there were enclosed fields instead of trying to enclose the entire town. Enclosures would, one presumes, be safe from animal attacks. I believe enclosures would sort out this issue and provide much more functionality besides.

[wichita]

I think that RD should be able to actually manage enclosed fields using existing code. Basically we just create a boat that is allowed to be built on land only. Off the top of my head, I can't remember if we can keep it from undocking, just in case someone wants to abuse it.

We can define harvestors that could be built inside of it and they could also serve as isolated graveyards, though we still need code to be able to make grave markers inside of it.

ProgD and RD are discussing a few points related to all of this.


Just to point out, the implementation that I am discussing will have some limited uses, and it will be difficult to code putting a fence around everything imagineable (which is why I am going to hold off on moving this to Accepted Suggestions just quite yet).

[Crosshair]

This should go in hand with the livestock idea, instead of keeping out wild animals. make a pen and drag a few of the nasty ones in there to stop them from being silly buggers.