How do animals scent bait? distances?

[FJBaguazhang]

ive been doing some experimenting with traps and baits, and im wondering How animal scent mechanics work, if they even exist. Do different animals have different distances between a trap and them before they start going to it, and is it a RNG type thing?

for example, would laying a whole lot of rotten meat on a hilltop, or through a forest, eventually attract wolves. I know that eagleowls and ravens always go for rotten meat, particularly if its up high. but would foxes/wolves eventually do likewise? considering scent is their strongest sense? just curious, as ive never caught any wolves yet.

does anyone know how this works? i also remember reading that the players tracks will detract animals so that could give reason for avoiding certain trap sites, as one would retrieve fish nets.

thanks.

FJb

[PALU]

As far as I've seen all animals that take fresh meat bait also eat spoiled meat, and birds that eat berries also eat spoiled berries. However, spoiled items on the ground disappear a lot faster than things in traps, so I suspect the trapping skill if both the making of the trap and the setting of the trap (plus any rituals used) affect the probability of an animal taking the bait.
I've seen animals circling traps on quite a few occasions, and I guess traps provide a deterrence factor as per the above to work against the attraction of the bait. However, picking all the fresh berries in an area seems to increase the chance of getting birds in traps baited with that kind of berries, so there might be a supply-and-demand thing as well.

[Brygun]

Meat can be fresh or spoiled but not cooked. Once cooked it no longer registers to the animals as bait.

The spoiled feature is there so you can put out a hunk of meat on a trap and still have it there a week later, now thoroughly spoiled, still acting as bait.

[PALU]

My attempts to use dried and smoked meat as bait have been completely fruitless as well. Dogs eat roasted, dried, and smoked meat in addition to raw meat. However, they don't eat spoiled roasted meat, while spoiled raw meat is fine.

[FJBaguazhang]

so far ive been able to use spoiled meat to attract mainly foxes; havent encountered a wolf pack in my active hunting yet to lure them into a trap setup...

i had a funny arctic fox hanging around my settlement, evidently trying to pilfer meat from my cellar (i normally also have heaps of rotten meat laying around in case wolves start to trawl my area,, but im waiting till  get some livestock in order to use them as bait for larger predators).

as for my scent experiments ive been unable to make much headway. no wolves have come . im starting to stockpile smaller animals and trying to catch hares, my hope is that i can lynxes and foxes for fur. ive found quite a few badgers also and caught my first one giving me a valuable fur. once i get my turnip store from my old base back, 2.5 days journey, ill expand my trap fence setups-- ive figured out where they are migrating to and from, and have a hunting route through large marshland, all i need to do is turnip bait from deadfalls and i should get much more product off of it if ive calculated correctly. at the moment my hunting route changes; when im at my base im mainly checking my trap fences, and expanding on them as well as smoking and tanning whatever ive caught. all my fox traps have been useless, and small game birds are no longer coming in. i plan on moving area soon and establishing some more bases where i cna trap rabbits, and also be ont he lookout for lynxes, bears and the like. a turnip rabbit setup encompassing rocky mountains and hills could hopefully bring in more fox/hare hides, and ill stil have my trap fences. im pretty confident ill be able to catch more badgers and stuff, and with my dog it will be even easier. i look forward to making a move to a new area to find new trapping opportunities; im currently eyeing a few places, including a coastal marshland enclosed by pine mire and a couple of lichenous pine forests where im sure to find badgers and hares and squirrels.

i think ure right with that suppply/demand thing. it seems to me that some locations are just bad business for certain traps. especially if your not aware that a lynx has been all through their killing everything; thats why i think middle of heathland forests are good to catch badgers; whether or not u can get them is a different question. always go into local mode, and try to make ure way through two or three sectors in a spot you think theres traffic; if u see tracks you can work out the best trapping strategy, maybe theyll run into your fence.

note: one thing that disappointed me; i went back to my old base 2.5 days away, expecting all the traps to be triggered and rotten carcasses and tracks all around them, but when i got back everything was intact; my stash fof turnips and dried meat had been unmolested, and a trap had just been triggered getting me a willow carcass. i was away form that base for like 2 seasons; all of winter and most of summer, and then i get back and it seems no animals have been anywhere near it despite a huge localized setup of traps.. does anyone know what does this? as i was expecting the animals moving through even at so far away to be going about their business. does it only apply to aniamls within the localized region? in favour of saving computing power. i was expecting animal AI to be operating at least in a place i was exploring. i dunno, ill see what else comes up, but not sure why that happened. then again ti could really of been a dead area, but the wya it seemed it felt as though when i reentered the area the site was triggered again. i might stay for a week or so, then head back, and see the level of traps in my other base; that would confirm the localization/activity thing, or it could be that i was in that area; so it remains active for a period of time before going inactive. i dunno. anyone help me on this idea?

[FJBaguazhang]

i found this information, from Sami himself, posted a while back on the old forums...

***


Sami Maaranen   Posted: Jan 27 2015, 04:55 PM

Topic:  Changes In Trapping Related Animal Spawning

"I have good and fearsome news for you. Trapping related animal spawning will be changed into more delicate (and/or realistic and hardcore) approach. I'll be reporting results of new trapping tests later on, but now just gather your courage and read on.

What won't be changed is that your TRAPPING skill determines the success of constructing and setting traps. Badly set or badly made traps may scare off animals, fail to keep them properly trapped or simply don't appear attractive enough for animals to enter them. These are the common trapping rules.

What will be changed is that the current straightforward animal spawning mechanism is removed and attractiveness of traps is replaced with a new and more delicate system.

As straightforward animal spawning is removed, the harsh simplicity of trapping goes as follows:

If there are animals at the area they may enter your traps depending on how succesfully these traps are set or constructed. If there aren't animals at the area your traps will remain empty. However, if there weren't animals at the area today, the situation may not be the same after couple of days. Traditional method of relying on the same traps at chosen trapping grounds for a longer period of time and checking them out on a regular basis is still valid and suitable trapping method.

BUT there will also be a new mechanism which improves propability of catching animals with traps:

* Even if animals at the area wouldn't be actually hungry, properly baited and succesfully set traps may attract them beyond regular feeding needs.

* Succesfully set traps may trigger additional animal population checks for appropriate animals

This is different from straightforward animal spawning and works more like an increased propability of new animal populations to be created at the area. This mechanism follows the rules of general animal population creation, so commonness and relative number of animals and their natural habitats are carefully taken into account. Therefore, if the trapped area is not suitable for certain animals or if animal populations are on a good natural level already, no trap can cause extra population probability.

It will take more patience, more careful consideration and knowledge of animals natural habitats to cope with the new way of trapping. Setting traps at areas where you have actually noticed marks of wildlife will be most effective - but seemingly random trap placement may still prove succesfull. Yes, there will be less catches with traps but it will be far more rewarding when it happens.

These are future improvements, not effective in current version 3.20p1."

well , there u go. for anyone interested in my searchings... im not sure if that sstill the case, but there it is

[Saiko Kila]

There is something to animals not being hungry and ignoring traps. I observed it mainly on birds, but seen also on elks and some carnivores. When the birds eat berries, they normally ignore traps, i.e. don't target them. On the other hand, they still can be caught in a bait-less traps, or do not eat berries set as bait in the trap they are caught in. I have one special loop-snare set near the lake bank, which attracts (or rather: catches) birds more frequently than five other snares and small traps set nearby, despite being baited by only mushrooms and some seeds, which are never eaten. I suppose this is caused by terrain configuration.

Carnivores can hunt other animals, can eat carcasses (for example badgers can eat more than one rotten bird carcass in one sitting), and can attack animals caught in traps.
I've seen attacks of wolves on foxes, wolves on elks/stags (a stag killed and partially eaten by wolves can be still skinned and butchered, so I sometimes practice stealing a kill), goshawks and eagle owls on other birds (including ravens) and squirrels, foxes on hares, lynxes and gluttons on about anything that moves on the ground (including villagers) etc. The farm animals can be effectively a bait, but this is dangerous for them.

As for wolves, they are attracted and eat spoiled meat in the traps, the same lynxes and gluttons. I catch all of them near my home sometimes (two tiles away), but mostly after I spend some time away, preferably sleeping several tiles off my site, like in a village. It almost looks as if they weren't visiting when I'm too close.

As a side note, there are spells for increasing a chance to attract animals, both general and specialised (for certain animal types, like fox or bear). Might be worth trying. The one with bear seems to be worthless, I caught only a single bear in the trap in three years since I started using it, but the one for foxes seems OK.

[PALU]

The old fox spawning incantation spawns a fox, and so would be effective with other rituals, while the new style rituals  (all I know of, anyway) would draw the type of prey into the trap if they are nearby, but if there is no bear around, no bear will be spawned to get into your trap.
I haven't performed any controlled experiments where some traps are subjected to rituals and some are left without, so it's hard to say if the rituals are effecting: I try to perform the appropriate ones on my character when they are known.

I think I've have been fairly lucky with catching bears while using rituals, though. I don't think I've had any bears visit the vicinity of my traps without getting trapped after learning the ritual (but it have taken some time, in some cases).

[Saiko Kila]

The old fox spawning incantation spawns a fox, and so would be effective with other rituals, while the new style rituals  (all I know of, anyway) would draw the type of prey into the trap if they are nearby, but if there is no bear around, no bear will be spawned to get into your trap.
I haven't performed any controlled experiments where some traps are subjected to rituals and some are left without, so it's hard to say if the rituals are effecting: I try to perform the appropriate ones on my character when they are known.

I think I've have been fairly lucky with catching bears while using rituals, though. I don't think I've had any bears visit the vicinity of my traps without getting trapped after learning the ritual (but it have taken some time, in some cases).

I had bears nearby, and they were never attracted. I have over 20 bear kills in direct combat, many somewhere in my home region. I don't use fox spawn spell (I simply don't remember to), besides I prefer arctic foxes (and they prefer me), but the foxes are apparently much more plentiful than bears, which is realistic. Still, this is maybe a difference in setting - maybe "migration" roads, inhospitable terrain or something like that. There are also many villages, animals could try to evade them for example.