Talk:Animals

Animal attack rates

Until now I haven't been looking out to see how often certain animals attack, but it would be interesting to record it on the animals page. So far:

• Elephants: have attacked once an hour when on the same square as me (35 minutes past the hour according to the game report from the server)
• Tigers: have attacked me twice an hour when on the same square (5 minutes past and 35 minutes past according to the game)

Though I'm pretty sure there were times when they attacked less often. Perhaps there's some randomness. Some tigers are pussycats.

Anyone else have reports? If so, add here and transfer to the animal page when it looks helpful --The Wary Marsh 09:05, 4 April 2006 (BST)

Yes, the Damage column is worse than useless without the Number of Attacks and the Percentage Chance to Hit listed. If an animal causes 4 damage per hit but only attacks once per half hour at 10%, the animal is fairly harmless, whereas an animal with 3 attacks per half hour at 50% would be lethal.

• In 22 half hour increments (at :05 and :35), an alligator missed me 4 times, hit once 17 times, and hit twice 1 time (two attacks for 3 damage with the same timestamp). This is extremely consistent with 2x 45% 3dmg.
• In 35 half hour increments (at :05 and :35), an elephant missed me 14 times and hit once 21 times. This is extremely consistent with 1x 60% 4dmg.

I'm going to say that all animals perform their attack routine once per half hour (at :05 and :35). Their combat routine is very similar to characters, with a percentage chance to hit that is a multiple of 5% and a weapon damage of 1 to 4.

Alligators, tigers, and possibly other animals, are known to have a multiple attack routine -- that means that they can surely hit you for twice the listed damage in less than a minute. The other possibility I can think of is that I was attacked by two of the same creature type, one of which then wandered off or was killed. (Next time it happens I'll screenshot the timestamps.) Imho that's important information that needs to be listed on the wiki, and further researched. --Tycho44 09:31, 24 May 2006 (BST)

I can help with a boar and large stag. I was recently killed by what appears to be one of each.

• In 35 half hour increments (beginning at 00:35 and ending at 18:05), a large stag missed me 13 times, hit me 22 times, and did not appear to hit more than once at any given time. 1 x 62.9% 2 dmg. (for the sake of simplicity rounded down to 60%).
• In 22 half hour increments (beginning at 07:05 and 17:35), a wild boar missed me 10 times, hit me 12 times, and did not appear to hit more than once at any given time. 1 x 54.5% 2 dmg. (for the sake of simplicity rounded up to 55%). --Lint 10:12, 24 May 2006 (BST)

Incidentally, since the game doesn't show misses, only hits, and I forgot to check the time when I previously logged off, my attack rates are overestimates -- I should be counting the series of misses that may or may not have occurred before the first hit. (Other misses are sandwiched in between hits and are correctly tallied.) Instead of a random sample of families with boys and girls, take the same random sample, but in each family remove all the young girls until you get to a boy -- the resulting sample is no longer 50/50. (Although for family sizes 35-40 the errors are small.) --Tycho44 11:50, 24 May 2006 (BST)

I can help out with a wild boar and a tiger.. the tiger didn't show up until the second day of sitting idle.

• wild boar: 10:05, 11:05, 12:05, 15:05, 17:05, 19:35, 20:05, 03:05, 06:05, 06:35, 09:05, 15:05, 15:35, 16:05, 17:35
• tiger: 04:37, 05:05, 06:35, 07:05, 07:35, 08:35, 09:05, 11:35, 12:05, 13:05, 13:35, 14:05, 14:35, 15:06, 15:35, 16:05, 17:05

At this point, after having been mauled by 2 animals for a day and a half, I died. --Simon 13:36, 3 June 2006 (BST)

It seems the recent news posting means that animals now try to attack you right after you attack them. Can anyone else verify this? --Frisco 19:20, 29 May 2006 (BST)

Confirmed. It would appear that the animal makes one attack routine after each of your attempts to attack it (regardless of whether or not you hit). As usual, if the animal misses, you are not notified. Note that this makes poisonberries and FAKs a bit less valuable compared to tasty berries, bottles of water, and other self-healing, since you can now harvest healing XP by impaling yourself against a dangerous animal. --Tycho44 17:58, 31 May 2006 (BST)

The only active animal attacks we should tally to determine their hit rates should be those that occur between the first and last hits, because only for those sandwiched attacks can misses be noticed. In short, we should discard the end hits because they don't depend on the animal's hit rate, while the inner hits and misses do. (I can explain this further and use examples if necessary. Basically, if the first recorded event is always a hit, it's not random, is it?) Using this method, the reliable data submitted by Lint and Simon for wild boars consists of 20 turns and 10 hits (from Lint) and 62 turns and just 13 hits (from Simon), totalling to 82 turns and 23 hits, or a 28% hit rate (±9.7%). If we assume that attacks as reactions to melee attacks have the same odds, the 2 reactive hits in 5 attempts (i.e., 5 successful attacks by me) of the boar I killed today moves those numbers slightly to 25 in 87, or 29% (±9.5%). I am going to update the hit rates on the page to correct for the current overreporting of hits. — Elembis (talk) 01:00, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

One more thing: since animal affinity reduces the likelihood of animal attacks, we must consider whether the players who report animal attacks have that skill. I think Simon has just one active character, and I know that character has that skill, so that may be why he was hurt less often than Lint by the same kind of animal. — Elembis (talk) 01:08, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I was attacked by a giant spider... at 14:09. Could this just be the server taking four minutes to finish? I took a screen shot anyway. --TripleU 22:35, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Tables

Active attacks

Signature	Animal affinity?	Animal	Hits and misses	Notes
Tycho44 08:31, 24 May 2006 (UTC)	no	alligator	22 known attempts, 17 hits, 1 double hit
Tycho44 08:31, 24 May 2006 (UTC)	no	elephant	35 known attempts, 21 hits
Simon 12:36, 3 June 2006 (UTC)	no?	wild boar	10:05, -----, 11:05, -----, 12:05, -----, -----, -----, -----, -----, 15:05, -----, -----, -----, 17:05, -----, -----, -----, -----, 19:35, 20:05, -----, -----, -----, -----, -----, -----, -----, -----, -----, -----, -----, -----, -----, 03:05, -----, -----, -----, -----, -----, 06:05, 06:35, -----, -----, -----, -----, 09:05, -----, -----, -----, -----, -----, -----, -----, -----, -----, -----, -----, 15:05, 15:35, 16:05, -----, -----, 17:35	The attacks ended when the player died at 17:35. Valid data: 63 attempts, 14 hits.
Simon 12:36, 3 June 2006 (UTC)	no?	tiger	04:37, 05:05, -----, -----, 06:35, 07:05, 07:35, -----, 08:35, 09:05, -----, -----, -----, -----, 11:35, 12:05, -----, 13:05, 13:35, 14:05, 14:35, 15:06, 15:35, 16:05, -----, 17:05	The attacks ended when the player died at 17:35 at the hands of a wild boar. A miss should not be assumed for the tiger at 17:35, because it may be that the boar's kill took place before the tiger had a chance to make the final blow. Valid data: 25 attempts, 16 hits.
Lint 09:12, 24 May 2006 (UTC)	no?	large stag	35 known attempts, 22 hits
Lint 09:12, 24 May 2006 (UTC)	no?	wild boar	22 known attempts, 12 hits
Elembis 06:12, 24 July 2006 (UTC)	no	tiger	02:05, 02:35, -----, -----, -----, 04:35, 05:05, -----, ----	I left at 06:10, late enough for the tiger to have attacked at 06:05. Valid data: 8 attempts, 3 hits.
Elembis 17:52, 6 August 2006 (UTC)	no	tiger	13:05, -----, -----, -----, -----, -----, 16:05, -----, 17:05	I left at 17:30, too soon for the tiger's 17:35 attempt. Valid data: 8 attempts, 2 hits.
Elembis 17:52, 6 August 2006 (UTC)	no	tiger	19:35	The tiger reached my square at 19:05 and I left at 19:46, leaving it time for just one attempted attack. Valid data: 1 attempt, 1 hit.
TripleU 00:03, 12 January 2009 (UTC)	yes	Giant Spider	10 attempts, 4 hits	All hits caused poisoning.

Reactive attacks

Signature	Animal affinity?	Weapon type	Animal	Attempts	Hits	Notes
Elembis 22:07, 19 August 2006 (UTC)	no	melee	deer, small	8	2
TripleU 20:02, 22 November 2008 (UTC)	yes	machete and/or wooden club	2 tigers	20	2	I had 1 parrot feather charm. 1 of 2 hits (in which I was not originally bleeding) caused bleeding.
TripleU 05:35, 4 January 2009 (UTC)	no	machete	stag, large	48	17
TripleU 00:31, 10 January 2009 (UTC)	yes	machete	giant spider	33	6	All of the attacks caused poisoning.
TripleU 00:01, 12 January 2009 (UTC)	yes	machete	giant spider	32	11	All of the attacks caused poisoning.
Raivo 16:54, 12 January 2009 (UTC)	no	machete	giant spider	165	90	47/63 of the attacks caused poisoning.
Raivo 16:54, 12 January 2009 (UTC)	no	machete	goat	120	24
Raivo 16:54, 12 January 2009 (UTC)	no	machete	rhino	107	35
Raivo 16:54, 12 January 2009 (UTC)	no	machete	turtle	58	15
Raivo 16:54, 12 January 2009 (UTC)	no	machete	bear	141	39
TripleU 23:57, 12 January 2009 (UTC)	yes	machete	giant spider	39	13	11 of 13 the attacks caused poisoning.
TripleU 22:28, 14 January 2009 (UTC)	no	machete	wild boar	32	7
Raivo 22:23, 2 February 2009 (UTC)	no	machete	guard dog	123	22
Raivo 22:23, 2 February 2009 (UTC)	no	machete	rat	111	34
Raivo 22:23, 2 February 2009 (UTC)	no	machete	giant spider	161	90	60/89 of the attacks caused poisoning.
Raivo 22:23, 2 February 2009 (UTC)	no	machete	turtle	165	37

Notes:

• "Attempts" is simply the number of times that the player attacks the animal (not counting killing blows) and thus gives the animal a chance to hit in return. "Hits" is the number of times the animal hits back.

Easter Bunny

Anyone see one of these? I just killed one I found. It didn't give my anything interesting...--Jackel 03:24, 16 April 2006 (BST)

• Sorry, no chocolate eggs for killing the Easter Bunny. Just plenty of XP for the kill (if I did my calculations right). It's unlikely you'll see one with max hp unless someone's feeling kind. --Simon 05:02, 16 April 2006 (BST)
  • (Does that mean that the Easter Bunnies were implemented with 50 "max" hit points (to bolster their XP bonus award) even tho they only had 30 HP?) --Tycho44 11:53, 24 May 2006 (BST)

I just got one, only had 3 hp and didn't attack once it was dead... since Easter was yesterday, was it maybe a straggler? Tibbalt 11:55, 17 April 2006 (BST)

Differing HP Limits?

I first encountered alligators in the inland swamps, and these had 15HP max. Now i'm over in the swamp on the easternmost peninsula, and alligators here have 25HP max (i've encoutered 4 or 5, each with 25HP). Did all the alligators get a boost in HP limit, or are these alligators super-special-flushed-down-toilet-mutant specimens that get a higher HP limit? This is a rather large swamp, makes sense that it would have bigger alligators. If it is only alligators here that have a higher HP limit, are there any other locations where certain animals have higher HP limits? Also, if it is location based, the chart should reflect this. --Frisco 19:23, 13 May 2006 (BST)

I think that all of the alligators have been upgraded to 25HP. --Tycho44 09:32, 24 May 2006 (BST)

Do animals move like predators?

While waiting for a fellow native to talk to me one day, on successive page refreshes (at approximately equal time intervals) I saw an elephant appear 2N 1W of me, then 1N, then 1W, then 1S, moving south in a zig-zag but not joining us on our square. I suspect that the direction of an animal's movement is unaffected by human presence on surrounding squares, and that aggressive animals (such as elephants) will only attack if the square they move to happens to be occupied by someone; in short, I'm guessing that aggression translates into unprovoked attacks, not predatory movement. This accords with common sense, too; given the number of animals on the island and Simon's awareness of server load, I wouldn't expect him to have coded complicated animal movement rules when simple ones suffice. Of course, it may be that tigers (and boars) hunt while elephants apparently do not. More tests will tell. — Elembis 08:08, 21 May 2006 (BST)

I just refreshed the map to see that a monkey is on my square; I didn't see it approach. This suggests that passive animals do not try to avoid humans, which sort of suggests that aggressive ones don't hunt them. — Elembis 12:24, 21 May 2006 (BST)

One theory is that an aggressive animal that you have attacked will intentionally track you down if you flee a very short distance. Undisturbed animals appear to wander randomly, in my anecdotal experience. --Tycho44 18:00, 31 May 2006 (BST)

That a fact, Tycho44. Numerous times when I've lacked the AP to finish off a critter, I've used my last AP to move a couple squares away. When I check back a short while later, rather than running off it has "chased" me, sometimes attacked. Its happened far too many times to be a coincidence. Futhermore, even missed attacks count as "aggression", causing the unhurt animal to become hostile and pursue. Elembis, elephants are hostile, and, like tigers, attack unprovoked, but I'm not certain how far they can "see" before they begin pursuing. --Jackel 19:55, 31 May 2006 (BST)

I also had an elephant one space from me which wandered off. As did a bat and parrot. But I noticed that the elephant moved just once an hour, slower than the others. See my research for details. --TripleU 19:35, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Uncommon Animals?

After traveling through the Durham peninsula for several days, I've only come across a few animals per day, spending considerably more AP trying to find them than actually fighting them. Is this common? Do some areas have more animals than others? --LouisB3 20:34, 24 May 2006 (BST)

Some areas have more animals than others. I'm not sure whether this is due to (1) built-in location preferences, (2) over-hunting by players, or (3) simple random variation. I believe that all three factors are coming into play. Where animals are very scarce, you can harvest more XP by using your first aid kits on the animal before you kill it. Since you are in less danger of animal attacks, you have less need of faks for yourself. --Tycho44 18:04, 31 May 2006 (BST)

Giant Squid

We've got squids, people. Anyone have any information on these new formidable beasts of the sea? Do they function as sharks do, or can you actually fight them out there? What, precisely, do they do?--Wifey 03:43, 30 May 2006 (BST) EDIT: Talk on the forum shows that they start with at least 300hp, and hit for 5 damage. So they are an actual animal that we can fight. Neat. I'll add them on to the table.--Wifey 04:09, 30 May 2006 (BST)

So do we got squids, or would it be more accurate to say that we got squid (singular). Errr, had a squid. --Tycho44 01:36, 9 June 2006 (BST)

They're getting bigger, there is now a "fully-grown giant squid" off the northeast coast of the island, 200 hp and hits for 7 dmg. --Doppelganger 13:20, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I just ran into a fully-grown giant squid. It's also of the NE coast. But this one is slightly different that Doppelganger's. It's hitting me for 6 dmg, not 7. And when I started attacking it, it had 477 hp. That's a hell of a lot more than 200. Plus, it's possible that someone had already knocked some hp off of it, as 477 seems like an odd starting place. --Stevenskistg 20:25, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Arrrgh!!! BEARS!!

At the cave at [-70.368,+26.442], (on the mountain, two levels up)I have encountered a bear! It had 30 hp when I first attacked it (in the interest of scientific research of course, it is monkeys I have a vendetta against, not bears). As I ran out of AP putting some distance between the two of us, I guess I will soon know all about how much damage it can do...--John Sevier 01:33, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

They're listed as only being on the mountain, but I just came across one quite a way into the Durham Peninsular. Has their code been changed, or has a really dedicated character been baiting one all the way from the mountain?--Broderick 10:17, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Bird Monsters?!

The most recent update made mention of strange noises on the mountain and the Natives speaking of bird creatures. So I decided to check it out. I went up there earlier today, and when I logged in just now I found I'd been attacked. By a Shargle. That's right. A Shargle. Don't ask me what it's supposed to be, but I know it has a maximum of 30HP, attacks for 2 damage every half hour, and gives an 18XP bonus when killed. So how 'bout that. --Stevenskistg 00:33, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

what's a shargle? i mean.. is it big? i don't think a name like shargle is anything but power. -Elegost 07:11, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

SHARtak eaGLE was suggested on the forums as an explanation for the name. 30 hp, and it can bite for that 2 damage quite often in combat. Seems hard to hit as well --Johan Crichton 09:29, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Let's get this page improved a bit, people

This page is hopelessly languishing without updates. I improved it as best I could today. More animals need to be included, and perhaps the entire animals-table needs to be revised. Do we need to include easter bunnies and zombie animals, which were special temporary animals? (I would say no, it should only be the normal animals. Explain about specials in the section below). Why aren't bears on the list? There's got to be others we are missing. --Arminius 15:16, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Sadly, the number of active wiki folk involved with Shartak seems to be very low - there's a small handful of people at any one time. Agree entirely with no need to include the special animals in the normal animals section. Bears should be on the list, since they seem to be normal elements of the game - if limited to a single location. --Johan Crichton 00:27, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps we can log the special animals in their own section? If so, the Easter Bunny needs to be removed. --Black Joe 02:21, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it would be nice if every special animal had their own table. What about NPCs like elves?--Wulla-mullung 19:08, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Turtles Question

Are turtles fresh or salt water? -Colorless Yimoa

According to the page, they inhabit "Water", which refers to the salt water. However, in my own experience I've only seen them on Beach. I'll add that as a location for them. --TripleU 18:45, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Rats- really in packs?

According to the page, rats "attack in packs." However, I've never seen more than one rat on any tunnel square, in the approximate week I've been down there. Can anyone vouch for their teamwork, or should it be removed? --TripleU 03:19, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I've seen multiple rats in the same square. --Johan Crichton 07:10, 13 January 2009 (UTC)