Jinxing traps

[Míriel]

  Have you guys noticed that traps only fail to capture the animal when the the player is looking at them? Or is it a superstition of mine? Turning my back to a charging wolf to capture it in a big deadfall trap is a bit of a habit from me .

[trowftd]

That is not the case for me although I don't really do much trapping. That's beauty of this game though, if it works for you, do it 

[PALU]

I've occasionally found empty bird traps, without feathers telling of a predator theft, but the only cases where I've had something escape large traps is when the animal is hostile when entering the trap, in which case they can sometimes continue through the trap or escape it after a sort struggle, so my guess is that it's not tied to you seeing the animal, but whether the animal sees you and is hostile. Note that this is only based on my experience, not on any meta game knowledge.

[Tom H]

I've had one large elk run right through a regular pit trap, albeit he was crippled by broken legs and couldn't run thereafter. Only recently I've had a wolf escape from a heavy deadfall, for a novel first. He, too, was crippled and couldn't run but he'd tripped the deadfall and managed to wriggle out!

Several times I've come upon a deer or elk near my fence/trap line and I've managed to herd him toward and into a trap.

Most animals head the other way when they spot me. I've never been in a position where a hostile animal had to pass through traps to attack me.

[PALU]

The cases where I've been targeted by hostile animals while protected by a trap fence has been when I've been inside either my homestead or my farm area.

I've also done some trap testing with an earlier character where the "test subjects" were Njerps from the war camp the character escaped from. The actively hostile Njerps all went through the traps they were lead into, although the bear trap took a few turns to get out of. The bear trap and spiked pitfall caused some minor injuries, while other traps caused no damage. On the other hand I've had an NPC chop down the trees making a trap a part of a trap line and then step into the trap. It took a long time for him to heal up, and all the while he claimed to be fine...
I've also found a dead trader in an isolated (i.e. not part of a trap line) bear trap once.

[MrMotorhead]

There may be something to this.  I have watched a wolf enter a heavy deadfall trap to eat the bait, set off the trap but escape with injuries.  This never seems to happen when an animal gets trapped while my character is away.  Traps are how I've been catching most predators lately.

[Plotinus]

I have, rarely, seen an animal enter a trap while i was watching it, but you may be right that it is more likely if you are not watching, maybe the animal is less wary if you are not looking at it. One thing I like about this game is that the world is so deep that with things like this it is hard to say whether it is a superstition or whether the developers have thoughtfully added this behaviour for animals. They've thought of so much.

[Ara D.]

Just last night I watched an elk walk into and out of a deadfall bear trap while I was processing an eagle owl and resetting it's trap.
Made me so grumpy cause I ignored the stop what your doing prompt because I figured it was not going any where to watch my 200 cuts of meat in the bush to fast forward away leaving me with 4 cuts of meat in the hand. Side note I was in a spruce mire so my trap was at the very edge of my vision, bam you see an elk and the trap springs, then the bugger just gets up and disappears as quickly.

[JP_Finn]

My character just added another couple sets of loop snares to existing trail (no fences, just few traps in gaps of trees. Then next spot some few hundred meter away)
Set an inferior loop snare facing pine mire in corner of spruce mire. Baited it with some spoiled crow berries, it is late Pearl month after all. Set 2 more loop snares, look for a spot that I can see all 3 snares from. So when checking them, I can just zoom in, glance, zoom out. And hazel grouse flies over me, turns back to face the 1st of the snares and gets ensnared, then freaks out and tries to flee. Well, that saved a bunch of spoiled berries.

Only time I’ve seen trap not trigger/capture an animal is when hare runs on a pit trap, eats the turnip, then runs off.
Game logic directs the animals away from suitable traps, if there’s better suited alternatives.
E.g. when I make trap fence with pit traps, I also add light lever traps or loop snares every 20-40 meters*; double baited with turnips (for hares) and berries (for birds). Then the pit trap turnips won’t get eaten by hares.

Edit:
*not on the fence line, but in close vicinity, usually in natural choke points. And only on one side, so checking the line in winter, don’t need to take skis off.

[Credit]

I've seen plenty of birdies fly/walk right into a loop snare.