Clanfolk News

v0.360
- Chickens will now leave Milk alone in the barn unless really hungry
- Deer, Bunnies, and Rats will now slowly heal when well fed
- Removed SetOwner from Fertilized Eggs because there is no place to haul them and it is confusing
- Fixed missing tool alerts.
- Fixed livestock wandering very far away in winter searching for grass to wander around on in good weather

v0.359
- Updated Hungarian Language
- Fixed bug where leaving animals that had died would be fed on by wolves forever because their condition kept resetting to 30%
- Fixed animals drinking from the center of lakes.
- Fixed dead animals which were set to leaving never rotting away

Hi Everyone,

The Hunters and Hunted Update has Arrived!

I am thrilled to get this update moved to the default branch. It has been an intense 10 weeks, with the testing branch participants being true heroes finding tonnes of bugs and giving great suggestions. I really can't thank them enough.

There were so many new emergent behaviors with the new Hunting, Sneaking, and Predator interactions that there is no way that I could have gotten all this working on my own.

Note: Anyone can join the testing branch under Clanfolk/Properties/Betas. If you do join, expect bugs, and if you find any, please report them here or on Discord. It makes Clanfolk better for everyone.

Lets get right to the details :)


[h2]Hunting Upgrades[/h2]

Hunters can now Sneak and no longer chase prey around the map. Instead, they will wait for alerted prey to calm down before approaching so they can get a better shot.

Hunters are also able to back away from prey to ensure that the prey does not notice them. They can be quite stealthy now.

Hunters have a critical hit chance with bows. The base chance is 5% but increases to 15% at level 10, and can be as high as 24% at level 18 if there is an 8x affinity hunter. (Legolas) Critical hits do 3x damage.

Bow damage also increases with Hunting skill as the Hunter will hit better spots on the target. A level 10 Hunter will do 3x the damage of a level 1 hunter. Note: these numbers are subject to tuning.

Movement speed when Hunters sneak is now improved as the Hunting Skill increases

Visibility range for sneaking hunters is lowered as the Hunting Skill increases

Added new Hunter task to Finish Off Hunted animals that have been downed, instead of firing arrows at them.

Flee Task now reads flee visibility to allow good sneakers/hunters to get a lot closer before startling the prey.

Hunters now gain hunting skill points as they sneak to get close to prey


[h2]Alert System[/h2]

Animals now have an Alerted State. When Alerted, animals will sense danger from 2x as far away as normal.

Alerts are triggered from animals fleeing nearby, or the sound of an arrow impacting on the ground in the area. So when a hunter is sneaking and gets too close to their prey, the hunter may be seen and trigger an alert. This causes the prey to flee which then alerts all other nearby animals and the flee will propagate to them as well. It looks quite natural and can make hunting trips quite interesting.

Hunters are aware of alert ranges and will also back off when prey are alerted so they do not need to follow them across the map.

The higher the hunting skill, the closer the hunter can get before triggering an alert in the prey.


[h2]Better Fleeing[/h2]

Fleeing needed an upgrade with the new predators coming online. How fleeing generally happens is that an Alert will be triggered by sight or sound, and then the prey animal will try to get directly away from the threat. This only mostly works though and many times the prey would get stuck in permanent states of running back and forth.

So now the fleeing has a memory of the most recent flee tiles and those tiles are also to be avoided. This prevents back tracking and works quite well. It is like playing a game of snake with their own flee trail.

Flee tasks will also try to avoid tiles that will slow them down, like thistle. Now the animals can be pretty slippery.


[h2]Bleeding[/h2]

With the new Hunting/Wolves, I decided that it was time to introduce bleeding and low health diminishing movement speed. This gives a more natural hunting experience with the prey weakening and slowing over time.

Arrows, Bites, and Claws can cause Bleeding.

If a unit is Bleeding and is hit again with more damage that causes bleeding, the bleeding will get worse.

Bleeding will stop over time, but heavy bleeding is likely fatal. There will be treatments once the Clanfolk run into cases where they are bleeding, but this is not a problem yet though.


[h2]Loyal Deerhound[/h2]

Deerhound were the go to companion in 1300's Scotland. They were an essential hunting tool, they could protect the homestead, and were also just fun to cuddle.

When a Deerhound is born/purchased they will pick a companion. The Deerhound's world generally revolves around their companion and by default they will almost always be at their side.

Deerhound can have their owner set manually by using the set owner button when clicking on a Clanfolk, or using the toggle ownership button when clicking on the Deerhound. There is a new key Icon with a paw to show this relationship.

The Deerhound's main purpose is right in the name. They hunt deer. In 1300's Scotland there were no guns, but there was an abundance of Red Deer. Deer are very difficult to sneak up on and hunt with a bow, but Deerhound were incredibly effective at downing them. In Clanfolk, the Deerhound are equally effective.

Deerhound have three AI modes. These modes are set by selecting the Deerhound, and then at the bottom right of the selection window is a new toggle.


Follow Mode: Follow the companion, help ONLY the Companion with Hunting tasks, defend livestock being stalked by predators. So in follow mode, most of the time is spent with the Companion, but if there are livestock in danger, the deerhound will detect this and try to defend them.

Guard Mode: Patrol around between livestock to defend from predators, ignore hunting tasks, do not follow companion. This is very good for keeping wolves and foxes away from livestock. You lose the hunting help, but the Deerhound is always on guard duty and ready to defend.

Hunting Mode: Help ANY hunter that is hunting wild game. Then guard Livestock when not hunting. Do not follow companion. This is a useful mode if there are some deer in the area. Most of the time will still be spent Guarding, but the Deerhound will break off to help any hunters as a priority.

Deerhounds will inherit the keys of their owner. This allows them to follow their owner into rooms. They also inherit door ownership to allow them to get into the houses of their owners.

Dog beds have been added so the Deerhounds have a comfy place to sleep.

Pet Zones have also been added for cases when Dog or Cat beds are not yet available.

Note: The Deerhound sounds are actually from my Standard Poodle "Max." It turns out that his barking/growling/yipping sounded very similar to the Deerhound sounds I sourced, and he is also a complete acting ham so I can get a much wider variety of emotion out of him. There will be more interaction sounds starring Max to come in the future.

[h2]Wildlife Manager[/h2]

The Wildlife manager now handles all spawning on the map. This means that animal populations will follow seasonal trends. So lots of animals in Summer and in Winter the populations will dwindle considerably.

When animals arrive, they will be assigned to packs or herds. When too many members of one of these groups are killed, the whole group will find the area too dangerous and leave. This means toy should pick the best targets for hunting and not just hunt the while herd of Deer for example.

Each animal group will assign a leader and the pack/herd will migrate around based on the leader's position. This keeps the group together and looks pretty cool. If one leader dies, a new leader will be picked.

Late Spring and Early Summer will now bring many babies to the map, and they will grow as the seasons progress. In Fall, the arriving animals will be older and be juveniles. In Winter only Adults will spawn. Note, babies will follow their mother vs the group leader.

The Wildlife Manager's spawn counts are proportional to the wildlife slider as follows: 1 + (0.25 * WildlifeSetting. So this means a -3 wildlife setting leads to 0.25x wildlife spawning, and a 3 wildlife setting leads to 1.75x wildlife spawning. More wildlife is not always a good thing as this spawns foxes, wolves, too.

Animal migrations onto the map use an accumulating random chance. So if each day there is a 25% chance of wolves arriving, then by day 4, there will be a 100% chance of them arriving (if all other criteria are met) Once the animals arrive, the accumulator resets. This prevents very long RNG stretches without spawning, but still gives spawning variety.

Deer start arriving Day 2
Wolves start arriving Day 21 (Winter Day 1) - Wolves need Deer/Sheep/Goat/Cattle to Spawn
Foxes start arriving Day 11 (Fall Day 1) - Foxes need Bunnies/Chickens to Spawn


[h2]Howling Wolves[/h2]

Wolves are the big new threat. They only fear humans currently, but that will be changing. In particular stealing their kills or attacking/approaching their pups in the future will cause conflict.

So Wolves hunt in packs. This is a new hunting behavior, and very effective. The wolves will prefer to kill deer and stay away from humans, but if a sheep is alone in a field, it is a valid target and will get chomped.

Once wolves make a kill, they cannot eat it all at once (unless it is a huge pack) This means that there will be a carcass. The wolves actually prefer carcasses to hunting and will keep coming back to it until it has been fully eaten. Carcasses are stopped by default, so Clanfolk do not wander into future dangerous situations, but they can be stolen if desired.

While wolves feed on a carcass, they will spoil the meat, so if you want to steal it, steal it quickly. The wolves also consume the actual meat on the carcass, so there will not be a full deer's worth of meat if you steal and butcher the carcass.

Wolves also lose their fear when starving and will venture closer to human settlements. If there are wolves on the map, and no deer on the map, they will be coming for the livestock. For now, keeping the livestock in a pen will keep them safe, but probably not forever. If your livestock are not behind a fence, you are asking for wolf trouble.

Deerhound to the rescue. Deerhounds have no fear of wolves, but the wolves DO fear the Deerhounds. A Deerhound can kill a wolf, and they know it. Any time the wolves are up to no good, the Deerhounds can detect this and will try to protect whatever Livestock is in danger. So if you see the Deerhound run off barking, that is a good sign that the wolves are up to something.

The best solution to deal with problem wolves is to go on the offensive and hunt them with a few Deerhounds as backup.


[h2]Sneaky Foxes[/h2]

Foxes are now a threat. A yipping cute little threat.

Foxes like to eat bunnies when they can, but they will also take a chicken that is unguarded. The thing about foxes is, if they are hungry enough, they will crawl under doors to steal chickens, so beware.

Foxes will try to avoid humans/deerhounds as much as possible, unless starving, then all bets are off with them.

Free range chickens are going to get eaten, so have some kind of chicken pen ready before Fall 1, or at least have a Deerhound on guard duty. The Deerhound will usually only put up with one or two sneaky attempts by a Fox before deciding enough is enough and killing it itself.

As with Wolves, if the Foxes become a problem, it is best to hunt them. Once the bunny population gets low, they can be a menace.


[h2]Finite Rabbits[/h2]

Up until now, the Rabbit Holes controlled Rabbit spawning and would try to maintain a constant map population of Rabbits. Now the Wildlife spawner handles Rabbits. That means there are only so many possible rabbits a day and that the number of rabbits is highly based on the current season.

This leads to some scarcity problem because everything seems to eat rabbits, and when the rabbits run low, then livestock tends to be on the menu.

Rabbit spawning is also based on the number of rabbit holes on the map as follows.

Rabbits are allowed to spawn up to 2 + 2*Rabbit Hole Count on map, but also must respect seasonal population limits.

When rabbits find a large patch of grass with no holes nearby, they will dig a warren there. This then becomes a spawning node for future rabbits and allows the daily rabbit count to increase. So this means a map without grass will not have many holes which means few rabbits.

Baby Rabbits will be much more common now (Due to Rabbits breeding like they do, babies arrive all seasons aside from winter)

Baby Rabbits will now follow mother and nurse as needed


[h2]Honking Red Deer[/h2]

Scotland is full of Red Deer, even today. They were a major source of food in 1300's Scotland and lead to the rise in popularity of the Deerhound.

The Red Deer will migrate onto and leave the map over time. They are a great bonus food source when they arrive, but they also have a chance to attract wolves, so beware.

The sounds for the Red Deer in Clanfolk are actual Scottish Red Deer recorded in Scotland, so although really odd sounding, they are accurate.

The Red Deer arrive in Herds and will leave if too many of their members die.

The Baby Red Deer will mostly arrive in Late Spring. They look like Bambi. Don't burn the forest please.


[h2]Stances[/h2]

This seems like a little thing, but it adds so much personality to the animals. All the animals can now lie down when sleeping. Some like Dogs/Cats can also sit. In fact Cats/Dogs can sleep in two different ways.

When animals are stuck in a rain or snowstorm they will now lie down in a ball to keep warm.



[h2]The Little Things[/h2]

Clanfolk now have a 5% chance of Twins!

No more fence to wall connection gaps. Fences now terminate with posts!

Flipped the windows vertically to make their perspective look better.

Made it possible for Seniors to marry! Seniors prefer other Seniors, but will also partner with Adults if needed

When the stop button is used on pets, they will sit... just because

Hens sit down on eggs now when brooding.


[h2]Change Logs[/h2]

So usually I post all the change logs here for easy perusal, but I ran into a problem. The change log text is way longer than this text box will allow, and I ran out of characters. It has been a very busy couple of months.

So for those interested in the full story of this update, please take a look at the Steam Forums here:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1700870/discussions/0/3183488858470509508/?ctp=13


Update 10 starts with changelist 0.334. It is a pretty interesting read if you like fine detail!


[h2]Road Map[/h2]

There is a lot more to come! Please take a look at the Road Map for further long term details as well.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1700870/view/3388412789658793666

Diving back into the code now.

Thanks very much for playing Clanfolk!

Andrew Hume (Blorf)
MinMax Games Ltd.


P.S.
I just wanted to give a quick shout out to my partner Narlak's latest creation "No Creeps Were Harmed." We both have been solo developing our own games since Space Pirates and Zombies 2, and if you like tower defense style games at all, please take a look.

Narlak and i have been working together for over 18 years now, originally working on Scarface the World is Yours, then SPAZ 1 and SPAZ 2. He is the other half of MinMax and really does make a great game :)

Note: I will not be working on NCWH, and it does not impact my development of Clanfolk. I just wanted to make sure Narlak's game got some visibility, which is so hard to do these days.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1932260/No_Creeps_Were_Harmed_TD/

Hi All,

I have just released the first version of what I am now calling the "Hunters and Hunted" update to the Testing Branch.

Please note: This is only available on the Testing Branch right now and the Full Update to the Default Branch will still take some time as I add more features and tune/fix bugs with all these new systems.

Anyone can opt into the Testing Branch under Game/Properties/Betas, but please be aware that there will be some bugs as I work toward the full Update #10.

When trying the Testing Branch, please report any bugs or questions on the Steam forums here or on Discord.

There is a detailed change list below, but I will also go over some of the major additions that are currently working. It has been a very busy 5 weeks and there is still more to come.


[h2]Deerhound[/h2]
So back in the age before firearms, it turns out Deerhound were very sought after as hunting tools/companions in in 1300's Scotland. A home was not complete without one. They are huge, fast, and loyal dogs that were used to bring down deer/wolves.

It also turns out they sound a lot like my Standard Poodle (Max) who is now the voice of the Deerhounds. Right now the Deerhounds are all business, but I have recorded many day to day cute, confused and playful sounds from Max that I plan to incorporate into the daily Deerhoud sound profile.

Deerhound are currently primarily used for hunting. They will pick an owner once spawned, but unlike cats, their owner can be reassigned using the key icon when clicking on a Clanfolk. It is best to assign the Deerhound to your main hunters.

When an Owner-Hunter goes Hunting, the Deerhound will detect this and come along. The Deerhound use a stalking mechanic (thanks wolves) and see the Hunter as their pack leader. They will try not to startle the prey, but once the prey starts running, they will race off and bring it down. Hunting with Deerhound is automatic, and VERY efficient. This is probably why they were so popular.

Deerhound are very loyal and will tend to follow around their owner most of the day, unless their is some kind of activity that needs their attention like eating, drinking, or defending livestock.

When not on a hunt with their master, Deerhound keep an eye/nose out for trouble on the homestead. If they detect wolves (or foxes soon) approaching livestock, they will come running and frighten off the predators with their angry barking. If a predator is starving, it will lose its fear and the barking will not be enough and the Deerhound will fight off the intruders. Note: Right now the wolves do not fight back, but soon they will and the fights will be less one sided.

Deerhound will continue to be worked on, and I even have new sleeping and sitting views on the way for them. I want to get them playing and napping throughout the day and acting like lovable pets when not being all down to business hunting with their master. I also am curious about Dog/Dog and Dog/Cat interactions.


[h2]Deer[/h2]
The Scottish Red Deer do very well in the Highlands of Scotland and are still common today. To improve authenticity, I have used recorded sounds from Red Deer in Scotland as well. So as strange as some of the calls sound, that is indeed how they sound. You will know them when you hear them :)

Deer are our first migrating animal. They do not live on the map and will come and go at different rates throughout the year. In late spring and early summer they will bring fawns with them and in winter there will only be rare sightings.

The Deer will attract wolves, but they are also a great source of food and hide, (and probably antler soon) Hunting Deer without Deerhound is possible (especially with the improved hunting AI discussed later) but it still can be an all day job without the Deerhound to help once the Deer flee.

Deer arrive in the mornings and form groups that travel together. As the group loses members (usually 1/3) the entire group will flee from the map, so there is strategy in which deer you hunt first.

The deer population and spawn rate is based on the wildlife slider, so keep that in mind when building the map. -3 on the wildlife slider will mean few deer (but also few wolves)


[h2]Wolves[/h2]
Wolves are where this update really started to come together. Their pack logic transferred well to the deer herds as well as the Clanfolk/Deerhound relationship while hunting.

In 1300's Scotland wolves were very common, but as of today there are no longer wild wolves in Scotland.

The Wolves also use authentic wolf sounds and they can get quite noisy in the evenings. Soon the wolves will announce their arrivals with calls and also their livestock hunts. The Deerhound keep a good watch on the wolves, but I would like some more added presentation when the wolves begin a hunt.

Historically wolves were hunted ruthlessly in 1300's Scotland, as I discussed in the previous post. I am trying to side step the most brutal aspects of those hunts while still keeping the wolves threatening.

It should be noted that wolves currently do not attack humans, but eventually they will in certain circumstances such as when wounded or starving. Wolves also do not bite back at the Deerhounds yet, but they soon will. Wolves currently try to stay away from people as much as possible, but will steal livestock if there is a good opportunity.

The historical accounts of wolves were much more vicious where they had gotten a taste for humans due to the battlefields and would even dig up bodies. There were even apparently little houses along roads to hide in from wolf packs while travelling.

Wolf pups will spawn with packs in early summer when the wolves come to chase the deer fawns.

When wolves make a kill of a large animal, there will now be a carcass. This carcass will be stopped to prevent hunters from getting put into a bad situation or being dragged across the map, but if you want to steal the wolf kill (this will be very dangerous in the future) you can un-stop the carcass.

Over time as the wolves eat on the carcass they will take meat from it and there will be less available if it is butchered. The animal feeding on the carcass also spoils it much more quickly.


[h2]Sneaking and Startling Sounds[/h2]
As I worked on the wolf pack hunting, it became quickly apparent that I needed to expand on the cat's sneaking to make it more universal and tunable per animal (and Clanfolk)

So all animals now have a detection range (prey tend to be more aware) Predators are aware of this detection range and will start sneaking before they enter it. Cats are the best sneakers, able to get very close, but also sneak the slowest.

When a creature becomes alerted from sound or from seeing a predator, their detection range doubles. That does not mean all the sneakers get seen, but they will be seen 2x as far away. So the best sneakers may still be ok if they are not too close.

Creatures in the alerted state will begin to flee if they now see a threat. This flee sound also alerts other creatures nearby and entire herds are triggered by members like you see in nature.

Once prey is fleeing, the predator will stop sneaking and will chase down the prey. It has gotten as close as it can and it has been seen, so it is time to chase now. It looks like a wildlife documentary :)

Units are also aware of Sound now. Arrows make a noise when hitting the ground, and this makes hunting more difficult. If the arrow misses, it will alert the prey, and if the hunter is close, they will get noticed. Once again Deerhounds come to the rescue here as missed shots will just trigger the Deerhounds to chase down the prey once it flees.


[h2]New Clanfolk Hunting AI[/h2]
With the new Alert and Flee mechanics as well as the Arrow sounds, hunting the old way with the constant chase across the map became impossible. Hunting is now much more of a game of cat and mouse. The hunter will stalk toward the prey. Then once the hunter gets as close as they safely can, they will shoot.

If it is a hit, a few things can happen. There can be a kill and then the hunt is over and the prey is picked up and taken to the butcher block.

If it is a hit, but not a kill, the arrow may cause bleeding. This may be enough to finish off the prey over time, but likely not. In this case the prey will be alerted and will flee. The hunter will not pursue, instead backing off, waiting for the prey to calm back down or become incapacitated from blood loss.

If it is a miss, the prey may notice the hunter and flee, if so, the hunter will also back off. This back off is very important is it prevents the hunter from being pulled all over the map and is much more efficient (and looks cool)

I also had to add a "Finish Off" task, because in most cases the arrows and Deerhounds do not kill the large prey and just incapacitate them What was happening was that the hunter would then take endless shots at the poor grounded animal, but that was too awful, so now the hunter will finish the prey off by hand and pick up the carcass to take it home.

The Hunting skill is now VERY important to hunting success..

Hunting skill gives greater accuracy and fire rate as before, but it also:

Allows hunters to sneak closer without being detected
Allows hunters to sneak faster
Improves the hit location of arrows so they do more damage
Increases the chance of a critical hit which makes arrows so 3x damage

Hunting is now quite interesting to watch, even without the deerhounds joining the hunter.


[h2]More To Come![/h2]
So even though there is a ton of stuff here, this is not the end of Update 10. I still have to put quite a few finishing touches as well as day to day behaviors in for the Deerhounds.

I would also like to get the Bunnies and Foxes hooked up to the new seasonal world spawner and also get the foxes hunting chickens.

I am sure there will be a ton of feedback from this testing branch update as well and many new improvements will come from that.

The next set of testing branch updates will come at a faster pace now that I have set v0.334 live. I had to deliver all this content as a unit, so it took quite a bit of time, but I will get back to incremental updates to the testing branch now as bugfixes/smaller systems come online.


[h2]And Here is the Changelog![/h2]
[h2]v0.334 – Testing Branch Only[/h2]

• Dogs will socialize with Humans who they sense have a low social attribute and will stay with them up until the bar is mostly full.
  
• Dogs/Cats will try to find Human Companions sooner when a new game starts, it was taking until the second morning.
  
• When choosing companions, pets will try to find owners who don't already have a companion.
  
• Fixed Flax Stems breakdown showing that they spawn Flax Sheafs instead of Straw
  
• Animal carcasses that have been fed on by wolves can still be butchered, but the condition will determine how much usable meat and hide can be extracted.
  
• Predators pouncing on prey now has a chance to inflict health damage on them in addition to a temporary movement stun.
  
• Increased AI update rate for hunters and prey while a hunt is active. This should lead to a lot less chasing the last place the target was vs going to where the target ends up. This also helps the fleeing creature sense and get away better.
  
• As health lowers, movement speed now decreases. This means that as prey is injured, they are more easy to catch
  [
• - When a predator kills a large animal, the carcass will be stopped (red x) to prevent Clanfolk from wandering into a bad situation, trying to butcher the kill.
  
• Upgraded Threat assessment such that fleeing and wandering see the same creatures as threatening to prevent AI thrashing
  
• Upgraded Graze Task such that grazing areas that have predators will be avoided where possible.
  
• Wolf Cubs and Fawns will try to follow their Mother
  
• Deer and Wolves pick a group leader and will try to base their wandering rooted around the leader. New leaders are picked if previous ones die.
  
• Wildlife Manager Maximum Population and Daily Spawn Change is now modified by 1 + (0.25
• WildlifeSetting)
  
• Changes Heather and Thistle from 14 -> 10 days for full growth (in perfect conditions)
  
• Added new Hunter task to Finish Off Hunted animals that have been downed, instead of firing arrows at them.
  
• Groups of animals will leave the territory when too many of their members have been killed or incapacitated.
  
• New ambient sound system that works based on time of day. This means Roosters will crow more at sunrise and wolves will howl more at sunset and evenings.
  
• Deerhounds will inherit the keys of their owner. This allows them to follow their owner into rooms. They also inherit door ownership to allow them to get into the houses of their owners.
  
• Fixed Owned Doors showing a gold lock for Units that could not pass through (it shows red in these cases now)
  
• Added Dog Beds
  
• Deerhound can have their owner set manually by using the set owner button when clicking on a Clanfolk, or using the toggle ownership button when clicking on the Deerhound. There is a new key Icon with a paw to show this relationship.
  
• Deerhounds will help their owners hunt
  
• Fixed Bug in v0.331 where a carried tool could be seen as slightly further away than a tool on a perfect path to the target object. This could cause the AI to pause.
  
• Damage will now cause animals to abort their current task and re-evaluate their AI instantly so that they will flee right away.
  
• When a creature is damaged, they will temporarily get a larger flee alert radius so they will be much harder to sneak up on.
  
• Added new Damage Types, Bite and Claw, these will connect to the new bleeding afflictions
  
• Animals now have base damage types defined. Bite, Claw and Blunt (no bleeding)
  
• Pierce, Slash (not used yet), Claw, and Bite all have chances to cause Bleeding
  
• If a unit is Bleeding and is hit again with more damage that causes bleeding, the bleeding will get worse.
  
• Bleeding allows arrows to sometimes take down animals that flee
  
• Bleeding will stop over time, but heavy bleeding is likely fatal. There will be treatments once the Clanfolk run into cases where they are bleeding. Not a problem yet though.
  
• Flee Task upgraded such that the pathfinding calls are instant so there is no pausing to wait for the pathfinder to find the next best flee node. This leads to much more effective fleeing
  
• Flee task tries to avoid thistle and other terrain that slows down the fleeing unit.
  
• Creatures now have variable sneak visibility based on their type. Cats are the best and can get the closest before being spotted.
  
• Creatures also have variable sneak speeds now as well. Cats are the slowest sneakers.
  
• Flee Task now reads flee visibility to allow good sneakers/hunters to get a lot closer before startling the prey.
  
• Added Alerted Effect, see small ! rising off alerted prey right when they get alerted.
  
• Added Noise system where certain noises will cause creatures within a radius to become alerted. Alerted creatures are harder to sneak up on and may notice nearby hunters.
  
• Arrows striking the ground will trigger a short range alert sound
  
• When Animals flee it will trigger an alerted state in all animals nearby, allowing them to detect hunters who are sneaking.
  
• Hunting task upgrade. Hunters no longer chase prey around the map now that they know how to sneak. Instead, they will wait for alerted prey to calm down before approaching so they can get a better shot.
  
• Hunters are also able to back away from prey not to ensure that the prey does not notice them. They can be quite stealthy now.
  
• Arrows are less likely to hit targets that get in the way now. It can still happen, but it is less common since we can assume the arrow went above the entity we were not shooting at.
  
• Grazing shots hitting non targets will do half the base damage since they were not targeted shots we will assume they hit somewhere non vital.
  
• Hunters have a critical hit chance with bows. The base chance is 5% but increases to 15% at level 10, and can be as high as 24% at level 18 if there is an 8x affinity hunter. (Legolas) Critical hits do 3x damage.
  
• Bow damage also increases with Hunting skill as the Hunter will hit better spots on the target. A level 10 Hunter will do 3x the damage of a level 1 hunter. Note: these numbers are subject to tuning.
  
• Increased base projectile (arrow) damage from 2500 to 3500
  
• Movement speed when Hunters sneak is now improved as the Hunting Skill increases
  
• Visibility range for sneaking hunters is lowered as the Hunting Skill increases
  
• Fixed Arrows from loaded games having their trail renderers active, leaving trails while stuck into prey.
  
• Fixed loaded arrows not mounting to the unit art properly, they were not bobing with the prey they were stuck into
  
• Fixed Arrows sometimes looking like they were floating next to shot prey
  
• Hunters now gain hunting skill points as they sneak to get close to prey
  
• Wolves will lose their fear when starving and will be much less afraid of the Deerhounds/People.
  
• When not hunting with their Master, Deerhounds will try to defend Livestock from Wolves. Usually the Deerhounds will be able to scare the wolves off, unless the wolves are starving. Then there will be a fight.
  
• Wolves try to pick easy targets, so if Deerhound are guarding one livestock animal, they will try to pick another, or perhaps go after a further away deer or rabbit
  
• Deer will not arrive before day 2
  
• Wolves will not arrive before day 5
  
• Reworked Pregnancy requirements for tamed dogs and cats (pets) The pet cat pregnancies were limited based on rat population like the wild cats, but now they spawn based on the Clanfolk population. This then does not stop the player from having pet cats get pregnant if the rat population is low. Rat population still applies to wild cats though.
  
• Pet population maximum for pregnancies: 4 + Clanfolk^0.5 So 1-3 clanfolk have up to 5 pets, 4-8 have 6 pets, 9-15 have 7, 16-24 have 8 pets, etc.
  
• Added Pet Zone. It works like the BedZone for Pets. It allows you to set a place for the pets to come sleep before you have the Cat Bed or Dog Bed unlocked. It should be replaced with a proper bed once one is available.
  
• Fixed a case where Doctors were reserving beds for patients instead of the patients reserving beds themselves, leading to cases of patient juggling.
  
• Livestock will be 2x as likely to choose raw food vs cooked food when stealing from Clanfolk
  
• Pets will be 4x more likely to steal raw food vs cooked food (They still prefer their bowls though)
  
• Pets(Dogs/Cats)/Livestock(Chickens/Pigs) prefer older/stinkier raw food
  
• Raw Food left on the floor or in the wilderness is more attractive to Livestock/Pets than ones in stockpiles
  
• Note Deerhounds need 2x as many calories as Cats do. Deerhounds eat about the same as Clanfolk
  
• Increased time for a Cat's instinct bar to drain from 1.25 days to 1.75 days
  
• Upgraded the Flee Task to take facing direction into account and make it less likely to double back and get stuck in an infinite loop between two nodes
  

Thanks again for your patience everyone!

This has been a really exciting update so far, and I have particularly loved getting Max in there. There is still much more to come in update 10, and I will continue to do my best for you and Clanfolk.

Andrew (Blorf) Hume
MinMax Games Ltd.

Hi All,

I wanted to give a quick update on my progress with the Deerhound/Wolves/Deer update.

The Testing Branch has been unusually silent on this update due to the fact that I need to deliver these three creatures as a unit as they all work together. This means I have needed to be 3x the work before I could show the results, which is what is taking extra time, but I am getting close to having something ready for the testing branch.

So here is a high level account of what I have been up to over the last month to keep you all in the loop. I apologize for it taking this long. The systems are very complex and I have been heads down working instead of communicating as much as I normally do. These are exciting systems to work on.

What ended up happening was that my initial work on the Deerhounds was not producing the results I wanted gameplay wise in the first week. Without the wolves and deer, the deerhounds did not have enough of a purpose to make them interesting on their own. So I paused on the Deerhounds and began work on the wolves, which were meant to be a bit of a surprise, but since this update is taking a while, I decided to announce them directly, now. Wolves are coming.

The wolves were very complex because they have pack behavior. They needed to have essentially a shared brain sometimes, but other times do their own thing. The wolves also are both fearful or man but also will defend their kills and pups, which makes them have more AI states than the usual see man and flee mechanic of bunnies, rats etc...

Wolves are now almost ready, and I will continue to add behaviors to them as the testing branch progresses. They can hunt as a pack and keep themselves alive cooperatively. Over time I will have them defend kills and their pups as well. I will also start on the stealing sheep, goats etc. soon (preferring the young and old ones)

Once I started working on the wolves, I needed them to have a main prey item, and that is where the deer come in. Happily, the deer's herds and wolf packs are very similar AI wise. Deer are less complex, but also need to generally move as a unit. Wolves tend to use deer numbers as an indicator of when they should enter the map as well. They flow in with the deer for the most part, but will also stay around if they find other easy targets like sheep (this is on the todo list right now)

I have done quite a bit of research on medieval wolf/human interaction and some of it was quite brutal. The 1300's were around the height of the wolf hunting times. In some places taxes were even paid in wolf tongues as a method to keep their numbers down. How the Clanfolk deal with the wolves will evolve over time. I am not that interested in collecting tongues or having a yearly puppy hunt (Which was a thing) There was lots of use of poisons, traps, nets, and though there were rules about hunting most other animals at the time, with wolves it was anything goes. So they are a very rich historical element, but yeah, I think I will pass on the puppy hunts :) It is very interesting reading though.

So once I had the deer spawning, I decided to upgrade the world spawner for the animals to take seasons into consideration for both the animal numbers as well as when the babies will show up. Right now just the deer and wolves are hooked up to this more advanced system, but I will continue to add more creatures to it over time. This means in late spring and early summer would be the only time Fawns or Wolf Pups would appear. It is a neat thing to see when they arrive.

So in review, week 1 was getting deerhounds in there, but it ended up being mostly a design dead end as they behaved like large versions of cats. I want each animal to have a unique purpose, and the deerhounds needed one... so I paused them and started on wolves. Week 2 and a bit was wolves. This time was mostly figuring out how to handle pack hunting and figuring out how wolves would come and go from the maps. I also wanted wolves to be threatening but not a chore. It needs to be ok to manage them vs killing them, if desired. Deerhounds were to be the answer to managing the wolves as well.

The second half of week 3 and a bit of week 4 was getting the deer working while also upgrading the world spawner, but the bulk of week four was circling back to the deerhounds now with a new tool in my pocket, the wolf pack.

It occurred to me that an owner and their dogs works much like a pack and they can work as a team. This solved a large problem that I was having in that I just did not know how I was going to tell a deerhound to go kill a deer. You can't just give a dog a job and expect them to do it without their owner being there...

So then I thought, ok there would be a special hunting case for when you had dogs and that would trigger a person to come along as a guide (Which was going to be really confusing/lame) But packs were perfect.

How a pack works is that the pack detects one of the members going on a hunt, and the rest of the pack decides to help if they can. So now that is exactly how it works with a hunter. There is no new interface needed. If a hunter has a dog, that dog knows they are hunting and comes along to help in their own way. And boy o boy do they help.

Deerhunting with a bow is an all day affair that can span the whole map as the hunter chases and misses, spooking the deer. On the other hand, Hunting a deer with a bow AND a deerhound is a very efficient prospect. Multiple hounds are even better. So I am very happy with this. Prior to firearms, everyone wanted a deerhound on the homestead, and now I know why.

This new hunting behavior also required new AI behavior for the humans to deal with new situations, like a downed animal. By now you can probably see where the month has gone. The first time a hunter took down a deer with the dogs, the dogs backed off and then the hunter stood 10 paces back and took pot shots at the deer with the bow, sometimes a dozen times, until it was dead... So yeah, there is a new "put down" logic to avoid that silliness. Once the dogs down the deer, the hunter will finish it off by walking up to it, and then take the carcass home to the butcher block. A hunt is a pretty detailed series of AI tasks, but it seems to work well and looks pretty good.

Now I am getting into the last few nice to haves before the testing branch goes live. So I spent some time getting realistic wolf and deer sounds, as well as deerhound audio, but I ended up recording my own dog (standard poodle) which sounded oddly similar to the deerhounds when I pitched the audio down 5%. The up side of recording Max (my dog) is that I have virtually unlimited sounds I can record based on his moods, and then I can get these into the game for the deerhounds. Also since all the rest of the Clanfolk human audio are family members, I figured the dogs should be too.

I also need to make things like dog beds and do some testing of the day to day life with the dogs. Hunting is tested in sandbox settings, but when it comes down to day to day life there are different problems that appear. Here is an example...

So it turned out that I solved the problems with doors and cats with cats being liquid (as everyone knows) but huge deerhounds do not fit under doors... So how does the deerhound get into the house to sleep at the foot of the bed. Well another half day went to keys inheritance. Deerhounds will inherit the key settings of their masters. This means we can be assured that they will remain loyal companions, near their owner. So far it seems to work quite well.

There is also the question of setting the master of a dog. Since the dogs act more like fuzzy slobbering tools, they need to be able to be assigned. Dogs will pick their human like cats do, but this will also be able to be overridden in the case of dogs to prevent frustration with none of the dogs linking with the one hunter. This I still have to set up, but will likely have working before the first testing branch goes live. It is all these little things that eat up time.

Another fun new system is carcasses. When cats kill a bunny, the bunny vanishes... When a pack of wolves kill a deer, the deer does not vanish. The carcass is now a temporary feeding and defense territory for wolves. Human want to collect carcasses, so I need to stop them by default, else the human would wander into a very bad situation as well.

Right now Wolves will not attack humans, but eventually they will. I am keeping the interactions between dogs/wolves/deer for the first testing branch release, and will slowly add the human interactions because it will add a whole new layer of AI complexity. Over time the wolves eat the carcass, but if a human decides to steal it, they can. The resulting hides and meat will be lowered based on how fed upon the carcass is. The act of feeding also spoils the carcass, so you need to get to them quickly.

I also had to upgrade the AI rate for fleeing and hunting animals. The tick rate for thinking of non livestock is once every 2 seconds, which is fine for wandering around and pooping, but during a chase it lead to constant pauses and misses. I upgraded the task system to allow it to bump up the fleeing and hunting animal AI to human levels to keep it snappy. This is another behind the scenes upgrade that was cool, took time, but isn't easily apparent. Cats are likely ultra deadly now and will need a re-tune.

Another thing was an upgrade to the threat assessment system for long range travel. This system still is not perfect, but now with wolves being a thing, I needed to prevent deer from picking greener pastures that were full of wolves. So this new system detects the livability of end positions when doing a long range wander to a new position with a pack or a herd. (Wolves also do not want to move in next door to people) As they wander, they also continually assess if their path is taking them past somewhere nasty and reevaluate. The wolves introduced a lot more and mobile threat to the environment, so the wander and flee tasks needed an upgrade.

Wolf howls are just cool, and lead me to upgrade the ambient sound system to understand time of day as well. This means that the wolf packs will begin to howl in earnest in the evenings, and roosters will crow a lot more in the mornings. In working on the audio system, I also decided to finally give Foxes a voice. They still need to be moved into the world spawner and will get some hunting AI of their own, but they sound like foxes now :)

The sound environment is a lot richer now with the wolves and red deer. Both of these animals have long range calls and fill out the environment well. The deerhounds playfully bark and the foxes yip as they go about their business. I am going to continue working on this as well as atmospheric audio is very important to me, but it will be ongoing as the testing branch progresses. I have happy, sad, confused, hurt, angry sounds for the dogs that I would like to get hooked up to the right behaviors. I think it will add a lot of personality to the dogs as they follow their owner around all day.

Testing branch wise, I am hoping for mid next week to have a version live to test out. This version will not be near feature complete, but it will be playable and will not break your progress, which is my main concern. Once that version goes live, I expect to go back to testing branch updates every few days again as I make fixes and we talk about ideas for this new system.

Thanks for your patience everyone. This system has taken longer than expected, but I am doing my best to make it worth the wait :)