Wolves and drifters spawning right in our base

[BearWrestler]

Playing with my buddies, we had this basic base set up, a dirt platform with a roof, pretty high up on a cliff face. Our campfire was there as well as storage baskets. But this happened to be a wolf-spawning region, and one spawned right on the platform itself! We pretty much had to abandon the region as we couldn't even create a secure location.

Later on, we had a base with a basic drawbridge like setup so you had to jump over a deep trench to get into the base. However, a Drifter spawned right in the base, a mere five blocks behind me. We had a fire or two, but I guess that entrance block wasn't lit up enough or something. But torches are not permanent...

To be honest it kills the fun of the game for us and breaks immersion. Minecraft always was pretty good at not spawning stuff on top of you, here in this game it seems very hard to make a safe base. It even prompted one of my friends to request that we set the game to exploration mode. We usually don't mind a challenge, but if you can't even set up a good base to work from, it doesn't feel fair or interesting.

Overall it seems like the spawning mechanics need a revision... I also often see animals popping out of nowhere right in my face when exploring. Are there any plans in this area?

It seems at least that any area that the player has stayed into for at least X minutes should prevent animal spawns on those blocks for the next day or two minimum. And as far as drifters go, some kind of flood-fill from an active campfire to determine the enclosed safe area (and just a reasonable distance from players overall) would go a long way to make the spawns feel more believable.

And in the meanwhile, do you have any tips on how to make a safe base early-game?

Edited March 24, 2021 by BearWrestler

[l33tmaan]

Oil lamps are your friend. Use them instead of torches for early-game permanent lighting. Since your base is infested with wolves, fat shouldn't be much of an issue.

[junawood]

1 hour ago, BearWrestler said:

do you have any tips on how to make a safe base early-game?

Choose a place where wolves most likely won't spawn (stay away from forests), where the temporal stability is high, and where it doesn't rain too much (you really don't want that sound all the time!). Wolves can jump 2 wide, but not 2 high, though they can still hit you there when you're standing too close to the edge, so a platform that's 3 blocks high, and far enough away from anything they could jump from, is a good start. Attach some ladders to the sides of the third layer to get up - the drifters can climb ladders, but they can't jump to reach them. If you're still worried that a wolf or drifter might spawn on the platform, add a 3+ high pillar or mini platform on top of your base platform, with ladders on the sides of the third layer, so that you could easily jump and climb up there and the wolf or drifter will simply fall off the platform sooner or later when he walks around. A basket with spears on that platform might be a nice addition. Then use enough (or more!) torches or other light sources to light up the whole base (if you want to reduce the amount of torches you have to make, pick them up once in a while or every morning), and make sure that torches have at least one block somewhere above them that keeps the rain away.

1 hour ago, BearWrestler said:

It even prompted one of my friends to request that we set the game to exploration mode.

Well, the exploration mode is great! And you can always customize the settings.

[BearWrestler]

1 hour ago, l33tmaan said:

Oil lamps are your friend. Use them instead of torches for early-game permanent lighting. Since your base is infested with wolves, fat shouldn't be much of an issue.

Thanks for the tip. Kind of a "high-tech" one though, since we haven't even found any clay and were too busy getting destroyed by wolves to make any progress towards this.

Also, am I wrong or this would light protect from drifters, but not wolves because the latter spawn in broad daylight?

2 minutes ago, junawood said:

Choose a place where wolves most likely won't spawn (stay away from forests), where the temporal stability is high, and where it doesn't rain too much (you really don't want that sound all the time!). Wolves can jump 2 wide, but not 2 high, though they can still hit you there when you're standing too close to the edge, so a platform that's 3 blocks high, and far enough away from anything they could jump from, is a good start. Attach some ladders to the sides of the third layer to get up - the drifters can climb ladders, but they can't jump to reach them. If you're still worried that a wolf or drifter might spawn on the platform, add a 3+ high pillar or mini platform on top of your base platform, with ladders on the sides of the third layer, so that you could easily jump and climb up there and the wolf or drifter will simply fall off the platform sooner or later when he walks around. A basket with spears on that platform might be a nice addition. Then use enough (or more!) torches or other light sources to light up the whole base (if you want to reduce the amount of torches you have to make, pick them up once in a while or every morning), and make sure that torches have at least one block somewhere above them that keeps the rain away.

Thanks for taking the time to write those detailed tips, much appreciated.

I'm cool with the "building defenses" part and the danger overall - it's somewhat realistic (though wolves are not THAT feral unless hungry AFAIK) and I like the challenge.

Having to work around the spawning mechanics is rather disheartening though. The more I think about it the more surprised I am that they are not more refined in this game, given the degree of attention that went into other systems. I tend to consider stuff like "don't spawn a creature within a certain radius of the player" and "don't spawn a creature on a block a player can see if the block is within X distance of the player" to be spawning 101 so... I'm confounded as to why is it not covered here? As I said I never had the issue of mobs spawning literally on top of me or inside my base in broad daylight in Minecraft, so I never expected a game like this that built its own engine to get away from Minecraft's technical limitations to behave worse in such a basic aspect. Maybe we were too hasty in our purchase decision.

[redram]

iirc wolves have specific spawn points.  And so if you accidentally build a base on their spawn point, you'll have a rough time.  Drifters spawn anywhere based on light and surface though.

[junawood]

1 hour ago, BearWrestler said:

it's somewhat realistic (though wolves are not THAT feral unless hungry AFAIK)

Well, it's still a game and not a realistic wildlife simulation, and in some games wolves are way...weirder. But I also prefer to play with creature hostility set to "passive" or even really relaxed with "never hostile", though the latter can be a bit weird when the creatures don't even defend themselves when you attack them.

If you want to learn more about spawn conditions and other stuff, there's more info in the wiki, though I'm not sure if everything is up-to-date and of course the game is still early access and things are still changing.

https://wiki.vintagestory.at/index.php?title=Wolf

[junawood]

BTW I'm pretty sure I never had a wolf spawn in my base, and I think I'm at about 1000 hours and I don't know how many worlds.

4 hours ago, BearWrestler said:

I also often see animals popping out of nowhere right in my face when exploring.

And this is also nothing I noticed. Though when I fly too fast in creative mode and the chunks are still getting created when I reach them, I can sometimes see animals spawning mid-air and falling to the ground.

 

So... maybe it's just bad luck? Or mods interfering? Or the server or the settings or whatever?

[BearWrestler]

2 hours ago, redram said:

iirc wolves have specific spawn points.  And so if you accidentally build a base on their spawn point, you'll have a rough time.  Drifters spawn anywhere based on light and surface though.

Ahhh, yeah. It would explain why we literally exited the base through the only possible single-block-wide access (we had a roof, walls, and the only open side was over a 4-block-high cliff) and walked a few blocks away, and when we came back to our base shortly after a wolf was inside waiting to destroy us.

Do you have any short-term plan to prevent this kind of thing from happening? Frustration was running high in our group. I have a few suggestions to tackle this, in order of increasing complexity:

1. Digging or building on the exact spot of the spawn point destroys it (better than nothing since it prevents the most surprising scenario)
2. Any edit to the map in the vicinity of the wolf spawn point destroys it (exploitable)
3. Any significant to the map in the vicinity of the spawn point destroys it (say, removing/placing 10 blocks)
4. Destroying trees around the spawn destroys it.
5. Wolf spawn point is represented on the map by a wolf "nest" (presumably just the bones of small animals, leftover of the wolves' meal). You can destroy the nest block or blocks and wolves will stop spawning there. (exploitable, unless wolves defend the spawn point and it's long to destroy - then it serves as a fair warning not to build a base there)
6. Wolves actually live somewhere instead of spawning out of thin air. So you spawn wolf "nests" (gotta find a better term) in a suitable area like a cave, and that in turn can spawn wolves going out to hunt, a mother and babies, and will also spawn wolves that will defend the cave agaisnt intruders. If you can get to the cave alive and destroy the "nest" or block off the cave, it destroys the spawner.

48 minutes ago, junawood said:

BTW I'm pretty sure I never had a wolf spawn in my base, and I think I'm at about 1000 hours and I don't know how many worlds.

And this is also nothing I noticed. Though when I fly too fast in creative mode and the chunks are still getting created when I reach them, I can sometimes see animals spawning mid-air and falling to the ground.

 

So... maybe it's just bad luck? Or mods interfering? Or the server or the settings or whatever?

In my case, it was default server settings, and the only mods are Primitive Survival, Adjustor and Grave Mod. I know anything is possible, but given the nature and stability of these mods and the small overall amount, I doubt the spawning of wolves is affected in any way.

[redram]

I'm not aware of any plans to address wolf stuff soon.   I'm not even 100% sure that's how their spawning works (coding isn't my department), but it's the impression I've gotten from a couple past incidents similar to yours.  It's one reason I usually base in open plains, since wolves are unlikely to spawn in plains.  Trying to base in non-wolf territory is the best way to avoid it really.

[RobinHood]

yes, I think also, wolves have fixed spanwing point, 50-100 blocks away from my base I have 3 placed where I see wolves very often too, thax too god they never were in the realtive near of my base, but I avoid this area and thats fine. Sad that there are two ruins on wolve-hills and a copper recource near by this hills-ruin, maybe with good tresure - with better armor and weapons I will made expeditions, good idea? I see that wolves likes forests and hills, and maybe ruins (seldom), after visiting maybe 50 ruins, there was only one time, with wolves ruin + flatland.

Edited March 26, 2021 by RobinHood

[RobinHood]

oh no, for a whole year I never did hear a wolvesound in my base, now I hear it also in my base

 

Edited March 26, 2021 by RobinHood