Under what circumstances do bleeding animals not die?

[Andy_K]

Not sure if this is a bug or intended behaviour, but I'd like to understand it more fully.

First example: In my current interloper run I was recently in TWM at around day 70. I shot two deer with the bow an hour or so of game time apart, both ran off bleeding with an arrow stuck in them. I went back to the lakeside hut and slept the night. Next day my deer kill count had increased by only one. I was able to find the dead deer with an arrow in it. The other deer I never found, nor any sign of the arrow

Second example: A few days later I travelled to the lower entrance to Ash Canyon. On my way to the hut I shot a deer shortly followed by two wolves. All three definitely ran off leaving blood trails, and very visibly had arrows stuck in them. I spent the night at the hut and went to check for corpses the next day. The deer was dead, but both wolves were back in their spawn area looking bright and healthy, with no sign of my other two arrows. My wolf kill count did not increase, deer count went up by one.

I know there was previously a bug which has apparently been fixed where animals wouldn't bleed out if you switched to a different region, but I didn't do that here. In the case of TWM, I didn't even touch a loading area of any kind, although I did sleep. In both cases it was fairly close to nighttime when I hit the animals. Could this have caused them to despawn without dying whilst I slept? I can only assume at this point that some trigger in the game causes the animal to reset or despawn, losing both the bleed time and the arrow. But I'm not 100% what the cause is.

[Dr. S.]

I'm guessing that this is working as designed (or maybe more accurately, as programed), and that sleeping is one of the things that triggers animals to spawn or despawn. So I think your thinking is right  and that you just got unlucky and the animals despawned while you slept, and the game engine doesn't bother to resolve that particular edge case.

I haven't noticed this with deer and wolves, but I had exactly the same thing happen with a moose in DP when I put a couple of arrows into around dusk, and then had to leave and come back the next morning because night fell. Of course moose don't bleed out, so I was disappointed but not too surprised when I found it had disappeared along with my arrows overnight. But it seems like the same situation: a wounded animal that despawns and takes any arrows with it.

[UpUpAway95]

A couple of months ago, I shot a wolf and stood in a spot where I could basically see it wandering around as it bled.  However, just when I thought it would surely drop dead, it gave a shake, stopped limping, and walked away like nothing happened.  This is the only occurrance I've had though where an animal who left a clear blood trail and was clearly wounded did not actually bleed out (moose excepted of course).  I formerly believed it was a bug whenever I entered a building or slept when the animals did not bleed out... now, though, I'm not so sure.  There may also be some RNG that determines arbitrarily that the animal has not been wounded severely enough to die.

[Andy_K]

Was the wolf definitely healed? It may be hard to be sure - it's not uncommon for a bear which is bleeding out to stop leaving a blood trail and return to normal behaviour, but then drop dead several hours later as it was actually still losing hp as intended. This is definitely worth investigating though, as when I shot the wolves in Ash Canyon I was convinced I'd spent long enough outside for them to bleed to death.

Despawning is the other likely option. If we know it can trigger when sleeping, then this can be avoided. What about simply passing time, or other activities which speed up time? And will just being indoors during night time or when the weather changes also do it? The safest option is just to shoot things earlier in the day and stay outdoors till it drops... but this is interloper, so I want every edge I can get  (and every arrow I can get back)

 

 

[UpUpAway95]

5 hours ago, Andy_K said:

Was the wolf definitely healed? It may be hard to be sure - it's not uncommon for a bear which is bleeding out to stop leaving a blood trail and return to normal behaviour, but then drop dead several hours later as it was actually still losing hp as intended. This is definitely worth investigating though, as when I shot the wolves in Ash Canyon I was convinced I'd spent long enough outside for them to bleed to death.

Despawning is the other likely option. If we know it can trigger when sleeping, then this can be avoided. What about simply passing time, or other activities which speed up time? And will just being indoors during night time or when the weather changes also do it? The safest option is just to shoot things earlier in the day and stay outdoors till it drops... but this is interloper, so I want every edge I can get  (and every arrow I can get back)

 

 

It definitely never died... my kill  count never went up until later when I shot a completely different wolf patrolling an entirely different area within the same zone.

[DrZ]

Yea, I think I encountered something similar when going inside. So I started to avoid that. If I had to guess I would say sleeping can have the same effect.

Would be nice if they could fix this. I only hunt if I can be awake and outside for the full bleed-out time...

[UTC-10]

Speculation:

A possible problem in early access was that if one stayed inside (like a dwelling) that after a game hour the outside (world) game state was no longer considered valid so things would spawn new when one came out.   Sleeping was a big problem possibly because in game terms it was in fast time so by default the game state was no longer considered valid (minimum sleep time was 1 hour) and everything spawned new.  Hence a wounded bear would despawn then be respawned, under these circumstances, brand new and unwounded.

Likely as a fix, the devs probably added to the code "if the animal is wounded and bleeding, then if the player reenters the world after the animal would have bled out, then it spawns and dies, else it spawns unwounded".  This kind of points to if you're going to be going in and out while the animal would be bleeding out, spend less than a game hour inside at any given time (so the game state remains valid) else your actions might then cause it to spawn unwounded.  So if you go inside for longer than a game hour stay inside until the animal would have bled out.  

 

I shot the bear in Miner's Folly and it ran away.  I actually found the wounded bear sleeping but didn't want to expend another bullet.  It was late so I got some food went into the Miner's Folly cabin and went to sleep for the night (I am in Pilgrim).  In the morning the journal's bears killed entry was not incremented (what I expected).  When I emerged from the cabin, the journal's bears killed entry then incremented (expected).  It was dead. 

I had seen this happen in Desolation Point at Hibernia so was not surprised.  

YMMV.  Good luck and good hunting. 

[lordcirth]

FYI, I once shot a bear a few times with a rifle, it mauled me and left, and I set down my bedroll and slept to recover. I woke up with the bear dead right beside me. It was terrifying.

[hozz1235]

23 hours ago, lordcirth said:

FYI, I once shot a bear a few times with a rifle, it mauled me and left, and I set down my bedroll and slept to recover. I woke up with the bear dead right beside me. It was terrifying.

Love it when that happens - no scouting around for the corpse.