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)

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
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
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, long enough for the tiger to have attacked, so the attacks from 2:35 onward (3 hits in 8 attempts) are statistically good.

Reactive attacks

Signature	Animal affinity?	Weapon type	Animal	Attempts	Hits
Elembis 01:00, 24 July 2006 (UTC)	no	melee	wild boar	5	2

Notes:

• "Attempts" is simply the number of times that the player hits the animal 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)

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)