Picking up small animals as you would a populated skep.

[Ashery]

Small animals include chickens, hares, and all juvenile animals, with the possible exception of bear cubs.

When a juvenile animal is picked up, all nearby wild adult animals have a hostile reaction in the same way that a ram can become hostile if a nearby ewe is attacked. The adults will calm down once the juvenile is no longer held by the player.

As this idea is ultimately just piggybacking off of existing infrastructure (Populated skeps, nearby creatures becoming hostile), it should be fairly easy to implement.

It's a simple suggestion that would help alleviate some of the QoL issues relating to animal husbandry.

You'll no longer have to spend hours trying to actively herd a single hen towards your new chicken coop, which is assuming that you even have chickens that are close enough to realistically herd back. But it's still reasonably balanced, as getting rid of two bags forces a number of other decisions: Making an explicit trip to get a couple wild chickens after leaving two bags at base, placing two bags on the ground after encountering a wild flock and then having to make an explicit trip back to retrieve those bags, or some other technique I haven't thought of. Getting the chickens still remains something you have to devote time to, but the tediousness and risk of herding wild chickens gets cut back dramatically.

It would also make culling chicken populations a lot easier, as it'd become trivial to separate a rooster and one of your highest generation hens from the others when you can literally pick them up and put them in a separate pen.

Grabbing lambs becomes an alternative to aggroing adults by throwing stones at them. The adults would give chase, of course, so you'd still get the thrill of being chased by a couple bloodthirsty sheep. Or you could kill the adults first and grab the lamb after, but then you both have to wait for the lamb to grow up and hope the RNG gives your sheep the right gender.

And with the best for last: You'd be able to sell the wolf pups you grab, though it'd be more of a short term thing as the pups would grow up eventually and there's currently no way to breed more in captivity.

 

[allstreets]

I'd love to see this implemented! Managing flocks of chickens past the first two generations is the bane of all of my savegames.

[Yeetiee]

As far as animal husbandry goes I thought it could be done with some rope to catch adults and pull them to pens but your idea about chasing and catching young ones and then running for your life seems really good. My only suggestion: realistically carrying small wild animal requires two hands so as you are getting the hell out of sight of angry parents you should not be able to use any tools (even offhand torch or lamp) as long as you hold them.

Edited April 8, 2022 by Yeetiee

[Ashery]

2 hours ago, Yeetiee said:

As far as animal husbandry goes I thought it could be done with some rope to catch adults and pull them to pens but your idea about chasing and catching young ones and then running for your life seems really good. My only suggestion: realistically carrying small wild animal requires two hands so as you are getting the hell out of sight of angry parents you should not be able to use any tools (even offhand torch or lamp) as long as you hold them.

Realistically speaking, I completely agree, but whether that extra cost makes for a good addition to the gameplay dynamic I'm less sure on. Being forced to drop a chicken in order to defend yourself from a wolf has a good chance of resulting in that chicken's death, as they'll immediately flee from the player. A lamb would be much less likely to die, but they'd still flee from the player and you'd have to hunt them down once you're done killing the wolf.

That change would also require a bit more work to implement, as you'd no longer be piggybacking off of the existing code for populated skeps.

[Thorfinn]

Wonder how hard it would be to add critters as carryables in Carry Capacity? It would look kinda cool to see someone carrying a lamb over his shoulders.

[EDIT]

Oh, or @Craluminumhas several carryables like flowerpots and resin logs...

[/EDIT]

Edited April 10, 2022 by Thorfinn

[Maelstrom]

On 4/8/2022 at 2:17 PM, allstreets said:

I'd love to see this implemented! Managing flocks of chickens past the first two generations is the bane of all of my savegames.

I manage generations by separating the offspring into a pen separate from the parents before the offspring grow up.  Much easier to wrangle the offspring than the adults, and the offspring have different speed and flee conditions than the adults.

 

[allstreets]

2 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

I manage generations by separating the offspring into a pen separate from the parents before the offspring grow up.  Much easier to wrangle the offspring than the adults, and the offspring have different speed and flee conditions than the adults.

 

See, I find it relatively easy to do that with sheep and pigs, but chickens...just a lot more difficult for some reason.

[Maelstrom]

I haven't husbanded chickens yet, but from comments and streams I've seen it seems that chicks run slower than adults which allows for segregating offspring from adults.  Haven't tried it yet myself as wild chickens have been plentiful enough to provide what little feathers I've needed.

 

[setne550]

Great suggestion. Honestly it is always a pain whenever I cull down previous gen chickens and boars.

Also with it, after a successful hunt. We can at least carry the dead rabbit near back home. Which I know hunters in the past does that.