#214 Scared deer charging directly at me v.138

[elloco999]

I was trying to herd a deer from the middle of mystery lake towards the derailment so the wolf there could kill it for me. I had it going in the right direction, until it was near the camp office and it turned around and came charging right back at me. It actually ran straight through me and then continued on, not stopping before I gave up the chase after a few minutes.

Even if the deer got spooked by something (a wolf? I didn't see one, but possible) why would it come straight at me? There was still plenty of room to pass me on both sides... I would have expected it to turn back around away from me, since it was obviously scared of me in the first place. It actually kinda felt as if the deer didn't wan't to leave the area it was assigned to and turned around because it was leaving it's area.

[John Dow]

"You have no chance to do anything to stop a panicking deer".

I often wished I could draw the knife and just push it between the deers' ribs while it takes me on its horns, tramples me down or pushes me away

As long as something like this can not be done yet, I am content of the interpretation above, while I also hope the programmers will fill that interpretation with some possibilities one could do, or with the explict showing to get trampled, horned or pushed away

[Beanie]

This is actually quite an aid to my hunting technique since I'm a rubbish shot with the rifle!

Step 1. Run madly at deer.

Step 2. Chase deer up a hillside or into a corner.

Step 3. Shoot deer at point-blank range when it turns and charges past you.

Even I can't miss when it's filling the screen!

[Trandor]

Haha Beanie.

There's still hope for you, I started out missing from 5 feet away aswell. Now I'm quite able to hit my target from far away.

[elloco999]

"You have no chance to do anything to stop a panicking deer".

While that is probably true, if I'm the thing it's running from, it would not come charging back at me unless it has no other option. And it did have other options, since it could have continued to the railroad and gone either left or right. It's not like I drove it into a corner and the only way out was back towards me, like @Beanie describes.

But to me it felt like the deer hit an invisible wall or something, some barrier it can't/ won't pass and that's why it came back towards me. But even if that's the case, why would it come straight at me if there was plenty of room on both my right and my left? Remember, I'm the thing he's trying to get away from in the first place.

[John Dow]

Surely you are right in some way, but I don't know exactly what's going on in a deer's head. Sometimes it seems like natural territorial issues.

But if it's not, then the 'pathfinding system' should be refined a bit

Anyhow, it's still possible to keep the deer on track if you keep some distance and calculate this to the amount of 'panicking-distance', the deer will run. Because if one is too near to a deer, who stops panicking, it tends to start panicking again, then you can not influence its way again.

But then I also agree, that there seem some invisible barriers, where the deers are not going through, no matter what....

Then, I guess, the only way is to make the wolf our friend and let him follow us to our both prey

[Beanie]

I suspect the deer doubling back is more a function of the game design than anything else. I'm no expert by any means, but from other games I've played I've noticed that mobs either follow a pre-set patrol path, back and forth, or randomly patrol an area with set boundaries.

I suspect the latter in this case, since I have tried to herd deer long distances and it always seems to fail. At some point they just turn and run back. I guess they reach the set boundary and the code simply randomises a route away from the edge.

Shame really, since I did have a notion to herd them all into one area for ease of hunting, but this seems impossible. They'd probably just wander off anyway! Though, if I could manage to chase them up the stairs to the lookout tower....

[TattooedMac]

This has been seen quite a few times in testing, and is getting tweaked by the Dev's. Ill submit a bug report as well, so it will be on the Data Base.

Thanks.

Ticket #214 created.

[Guest]

Will happen if there is no exit except towards the player. Otherwise the deer runs away.