Animal training and "trained" wild animals

[seraph of candles]

So, I think the ship might be sailing on this--the writing is on the wall for domesticated wolves, for example--but I think it'd be really neat if the game presented a middle-ground between "wild" and "domesticated" that went beyond the flight distance steadily dropping. I'd love to have the option of forming more complex partnerships with truly wild animals, like raccoons, foxes and maybe even bees to a super limited degree, without capturing and breeding them. IRL, fully wild animals can develop a certain rapport with humans, even though they remain unpredictable and dangerous.

Here's the idea: You can make any animal "trained" through persistent carefully-governed interactions, like food exchanges and maybe an item like a signal whistle. (This could be a fun way to integrate something like the Instruments mod--maybe using the item on the animal opens a small UI of teachable tricks that the animal can potentially learn, or maybe training involves triggering special game behaviors which you then match with a consistent note. That latter idea sounds really hard to code, but more potentially immersive.) Tricks might include "Come here", "Stay", "Go away", "find a wild beehive", etc, depending on the animal.

Now, domesticated animals can be trained over time with extreme reliability, naturally. That's the obvious goal of domesticating wolves or whatever; we aren't circumventing domestication by doing this. But wild animals, even fully "trained" ones, always retain a certain level of unpredictability. They always have a chance to lash out at people who get "too close". The aggression/flight range drops precipitously--eventually, after enough time, some types of trained animals might let you be right next to them as long as you're crouching--but it's not reliable to keep a trained wild animal around all the time. Maybe you run into a wolf in the woods and find it ignoring you/saving you from drifters because you trained it previously. Maybe a wild raccoon leads you straight to a beehive it found and looking at you expectantly, awaiting its treat. It's likely to be little things.

Wild trained animals aren't tamed animals. They just have an understanding with you.

Now, each type of animal has specific "triggers" that increase the range again. Being in a "room" space instantly drastically increases the aggression range for any wild animal. Being around food sources or having a low Weight does, too. Certain animals might also have special triggers--foxes increase the range when they see chickens, bears increase the range during the fall, wolves increase the range drastically when they see other wolves. Looking straight at an animal or carrying torches might also affect the radius. The training might even backfire if you're not careful, attracting wild predators who expect you to give them food and get agitated when you don't (please do not feed wild animals IRL, it's super unsafe for you and for the animals!). They're semi-friendly, but also still very much wild. It's like how people IRL can treat chimpanzees like pets... but they really shouldn't.

Edited October 6, 2024 by seraph of candles