Animals

[Doug R.]

Doug R. Every island is isolated from others. No animals migration or anything betwean islands. So check one island after another, serapatly, and see yourself how bad it is. Make some calculation, like average number of animals per location for every island, and how much animals every kind on island. If this number is bad, like less than 15 or more then 150 animals, do something and help.

Unfortunately, the animal management system groups animals by region instead of islands. The locations within each region are listed by number and not name, so for regions that I am not familiar with, such as any foreign language area, I have no idea for any given region what island the location I'm looking at is even on.

For the Polish area, it would be a great help if you could perhaps PM me the details of your region, for example, how many Polish islands there are, and also the numbers of the locations that your characters reside in and what islands they are on (when you click on the town name, the last number in the link in the address box is the town's number). It will be a tedious process, but it's the only way I can think of to get the info I need, since I can't get it from the database.

Animal migration rates will be something I will also look into.

[TatteredShoeLace]

Before you think about reintroducing animals, it is important to look into the technology involved. If you bring sheep back to K Isle, they'll be butchered again. Whereas if they could be corralled, sheared, and bred, heck, I'd sail to Fu Put to catch a few.

I'm sorry I can't help on RD anymore, but we need people willing to complete some other items of importance before conservation can be more managable. Zoos and preserves will spring from it, and animals can even become a trading commodity (or warfare). Theoretically the problem could fix itself if this was possible.

[Doug R.]

As I've mentioned, I'm here to try to manage the system as best as possible within the current constraints of the system. If animals could be transported from one region to another, it is possible my job would not be necessary at all, but as far as I know, such a thing isn't possible without additional code, which I was told before I even got the job would not be doable given ProgD's tremendous work backlog. My hands are tied, but my fingers can still wiggle.

It's possible that the Sociologist is right, and that I can't do squat in this new position, but I'm not the type to throw up my hands and quit before I've even failed.

[marol]

Dough, I'll deliver you a map of Polish region with location idetifiers, so you could get some orientation.

[SekoETC]

Shut up Sociologist, you don't know shit. 1) It was said that the animal code DOES NOT cause the lag and is most likely the most optimized code in Cantr. 2) One of my characters is living on Omeo island with some Russians and I can confirm that they exist. Just most likely in a different part of the island than where you are. There are also lots of English and some Swedish people on Omeo island, how could you call for it's closing? >.>

I think that hunting, even though it didn't cause enough damage to kill, should make the animals nervous which would lower the chance of reproducing and increase the chance of migration. This way you could just poke animals to make them stressed and maybe they'll go away, or at least stop making babies. This would be a better option than killing them, creating vast piles of needless resources.

If a group of people purposefully or accidentally hunts some species of animals into extinction, they shouldn't be reseeded. We were thinking that it was impossible to kill off all the lions on Zhift region but we did. It's kinda sad but it's past now. No way of bringing them back. Also the newspawns killed off all the pigeons because hunting is one of the easiest things you can do in game. Pigeons should be breeding almost like lemmings...

[Zanthos]

Or buffalo...

Maybe there was some gene splicing to make them like rabbits, but it seems there are over 100 in every location around Kwor (namely Kwor Fields and Kwor Fields South)

[Doug R.]

While I don't know if Buffalo were tweaked at any point, it is possible that their general toughness, combined with concerted conservation (seeing as how they are the official mascot of Karnon), could have just sent the population up naturally.

[formerly known as hf]

Omeo wolves / goats have personally been an issue for me.

There is another awake person on Omeo? Remarkable. Personally, I think it should be shut down--unless there are any Russians(?) left. Vast islands with nothing but "individualized" animals for the slow and laggy server to process, at the expense of faster processing that might actually bring a few people to the game, are part of what's slowly and surely killing off said game.

There are about 2/3 locations somewhat awake with english characters.

My character went for a wander - bad move...

[Sicofonte]

I am with the people stating the the animal's system should be changed before reseeding anything.

But if some reseeding is going to be made, please, Doug, put some sheeps and loads of pigeons (and hawks and pelicans could be nice, although these would be new species) on the German/Spanish island (Rifrokin, Mianir, Blajlokin, Organiritsj, Kishnakotis, Snavirn). Pigeons are almost extinct in the Dutch/French island (Flikadorov, Wirwarov, Llanoi, Yarlitskov, Romov, Niff, Morn).

[BarbaricAvatar]

Omeo wolves / goats have personally been an issue for me.

There is another awake person on Omeo? Remarkable. Personally, I think it should be shut down--unless there are any Russians(?) left. Vast islands with nothing but "individualized" animals for the slow and laggy server to process, at the expense of faster processing that might actually bring a few people to the game, are part of what's slowly and surely killing off said game.

There are about 2/3 locations somewhat awake with english characters.

My character went for a wander - bad move...

Yup, my char spawned in a place with active English people, then found another couple in the next town and was also visited by highly active Swedish and Polish chars. Things are certainly not dead on Omeo, there's just fewer people, which is nice.

[Frits]

Each location has a maximum population that it can support. Animal numbers that exceed this maximum trigger an overpopulation response that increases natural animal mortality and migration. Overcrowded hawks (or Buffalos) can potentially trigger this response and take down all the other animals in the location with them, further degrading balance.

As you might know i have a sixth sense for them. Notes:
In one roadsection on Burgeo i might see 20 or even 30 roaming animals.
I arrive in a desloated town counting 129 animals, next day i counted them again: 223! - so both a case of too many i find.
Natural armor is a big influence so regarding buffalo, wild boars, tortoises and elephants. it's fine some species are tough but their numbers keep growing steadily and hardly ever fall, on the contrary unprotected species like lions, turkeys and pigeons are on the brink of extinction in many locations. Horses don't, i'm guessing it's to do with the reproduction rate.

What are the factors deciding animalnumbers? (in RL seasons are deciders, at one point a bad winter will deprive them of food and the more there are the more will die, that's a factor that comes in waves, very unpredictable as well, i don't think that's in cantr) I find there is a factor failing to bring down the number of... ie the buffalo on K-island. If also the number of buffalo keeps a lid on reproduction of other species this is not working, and had gotten worse over the time i wasn't even playing, and will yet worsen given more time.

[Doug R.]

What are the factors deciding animalnumbers?

When two animals are in a location, there is a % chance they will spawn another. Animals also have a determined lifespan, and are hunted by the players. If animals spawn faster than they die and are killed, the numbers go up. If they die and are killed faster than they spawn, their numbers go down. Balancing spawn % with lifespan is math. Accounting for player hunting is a crap shoot that can be focused to some extent with math, but will never be perfect.

Also, remember that the population numbers I see account for all animals in a species. Some of those animals are in high player pop areas, some are in low. There are probably more in low pop areas than high pop areas, since the ones in high pop areas were probably killed off. This means animals in high pop areas could be declining, while the ones in low player pop areas are increasing.

I know that the ultimate goal is to have the system manage itself, but without very complex algorithms, I'll just have to keep track of it manually and tweak it here and prod it there as necessary.

Sorry for the long post. I just felt like writing

[Spazz]

Heh, Omeo ain't abandoned, I've got a charrie there, he's even witnessed newspawns, and talked to Polish and Russian players, there's no more need to get rid of Omeo than there is need to get rid of Burgeo or Siom Island.

[Cantryjczyk]

From polish topic about animals:

No i w wyniku dyskusji polska strefa została ukarana. Jastrzębi wszędzie gdzie są moje postacie jest bardzo mało i będzie jeszcze mniej. Przepraszam że tak powiem ale do dupy takie poprawki.

Because of the forum discussion Polish players are now being penalised. Hawks in the places my chars live are quite rare and will now be even more so. I'm sorry, but to hell with a solution like this.

hawk
Reproduction chance : 2 (was 3)

scarab
Reproduction chance : 2 (was 4)

lemming
Reproduction chance : 7 (was 9)

Mniej bo współczynnik z 3 zmniejszył się do 2.

P.S. Jeżeli problemy ze zwierzętami będą rozwiązywane przez zwiększanie lub zmniejszanie współczynnika rozrodczości to zawsze komuś sie poprawi a komuś pogorszy. Zmiana musi być systemowa/kompleksowa, a nie polegać na poprawianiu chorego systemu na podstawie egoistycznych opinii forumowiczów.

P.S. If the problems with the animals are to be fixed via changes to their reproduction, this will always benefit some players and punish others. The change must be to fix the system and not just to pander to people who complain in the forum.

And yes, polish people feels like that, it is not one men's opinion.

[Talapus]

...not just to pander to people who complain in the forum.

This change was not at all because of anybodies suggestions outside of the staff forums. The populations of those three animals are growing at an incredible rate, and it needs to be stopped (I had made some calculations about how long it would take until Cantr had 1,000,000 scarabs, and it was not that long). These changes will hopefully help bring these animals back into line.