Cougar on Pilgrim

[Pyroxene]

I activated the cougar because I wanted to see the feature. Will the cougar attack me if I am on Pilgrim?

[Leeanda]

That's what I was wondering... But if it takes 70 days to appear it shouldn't be a massive issue..

[Veskaida]

The Cougar is currently disabled, but yes, previously it would attack the player even on Pilgrim: if you lived 70 days consecutively in a region, or if you starting damaging it's den with noisemakers.

[UTC-10]

I would expect that the Cougar would attack in a Pilgrim game.  I believe that since the actual attack is more of an event rather than the critter actually approaching you like a wolf or bear, there is no point for the "don't attack the Pilgrim" to actually kick in.  

I would point out that there seemed to be a bug somewhere.  I was on Timberwolf for four or five game days before the update occurred, having just left Ash Canyon, when I discovered, after the update and my fumbling the Use LOAD not RESUME instruction that was nowhere to be found, that the Cougar was already heading for Timberwolf and would arrive in four  or five days.  That meant, to me, that instead of seventy (70) days for me to get the Cougar's attention (using Zaknafein's estimate) I only had a ten (10) day period before the Cougar would be on Timberwolf.  That is consistent with Zak's estimate for Misery mode.  

I did move to Pleasant Valley, unsure of how soon the Cougar would start after me in PV, when shortly thereafter the hotfix allowed me to disable the Cougar mechanic.  

I think that it is (or now was) supposed to take ten (10) days for the Cougar to lose interest in the character in the targeted region so a ten day grace period that I seemed to experience would be a bit problematic.  

[UTC-10]

I, for one, do not care for a predator threat in my Pilgrim game.  Therefore the Cougar was disabled as soon as I could do so.  

For my purposes, I was thinking that as a concession to Pilgrim's No Predator Attack that maybe the Cougar could be revised, for Pilgrim difficulty, from a predator that can be induced to attack (ala the wolf and bear) into a more nuisance predator that hunts and deprives the Pilgrim of as ready a food supply as currently available in the game.

The Cougar would behave like the wolves and bear except that the Pilgrim cannot actually attack it and it does not attack the Pilgrim.  The Cougar will pick off occasional deer and rabbits, eat the meat after which the carcass is now in a Nothing to Harvest State OR if all meat is not consumed, the Cougar now hides the carcass to finish later at its leisure.  The Pilgrim could then sometimes find the "hidden" carcass remains.

The Cougar does not need a patrol area or patrol pattern and could just spawn randomly, sometimes in the general vicinity of the Pilgrim to provide  a "surprise" near encounter and run off.   This could also explain to the Pilgrim why that deer herd of two or three deer now is down, right now, to one deer.  

The rate at which the Cougar picks off other game animals could then be subject to adjustment in a custom Pilgrim game and thereby make game animals a bit more harder to find.  

Of course, the Cougar headgear and claw would not be available in this form of vanilla Pilgrim.  

In a customized Pilgrim game, the Cougar could be turned on full force with all the problems and benefits that any higher vanilla difficulty would have.  

[Veskaida]

Cougar arrival times were:

• 70 days Pilgrim
• 30 Voyageur/Stalker
• 20 Interloper
• 10 Misery

"Cougar Encroaching" warning appeared 5 days before Cougar arrival, so e.g. 65 days spent in a region on Pilgrim, or 5 days spent in a region on Misery.

I do not believe there was any "grace period" for cougars, unless you mean destroying the Cougar Den temporarily.

e.g.

• Player on Voyageur spends 30 days in Pleasant Valley, Cougar arrives in-region
• Player leaves Pleasant Valley to Timberwolf Mountain
• For the next 10 days, the Cougar would remain active in Pleasant Valley, but the player would also progressing time in Timberwolf Mountain towards a Cougar appearing there.

This was particularly obvious in Misery Mode, because the Cougar's time to arrive AND time spent in a region was the same for both (10 days), so Misery really felt like a cougar was actively chasing you and existed in the world constantly. Reminded me a bit of "Nemesis" from the Resident Evil series, or similar "pursuer-type enemies".

[UTC-10]

I understand that I should have had plenty of time to poke around and then get off Timberwolf but that was not the case.  I had just returned from Ash Canyon before the update so I was a bit surprised and concerned to see that the Cougar would arrive in a handful of days.  I did check out Zaknafein's video on the Cougar so knew that I should have had a lot of time.  

It is possible that the programming might have taken my total aggregate time on Timberwolf, more than 200 days, and said "yep, time to let loose the Cougar".  In other words  a bit of a mistake somewhere and I am sure they will go over and check the mechanics before they turn it loose on GBI again.  

I'll be on Disabled anyway so in the end it is not a problem.  But it was unexpected.  

[Mroz4k]

That sounds like a bug that few people also reported. 

Also, cougar would attack. On pilgrim, animals that are "provoked" are still hostile, like pointing a gun at a wolf should make it attack if it notices, rather than run away. 

Cougar is an event, rather than animal, so its kinda "always provoked".