Crows and the Dead


hauteecolerider

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So, crows circle the preplaced corpses and deer carcasses. Nice touch, it really adds to the immersion.

However, after having fought off two wolves in rapid succession at the end of the day, I had to leave them to die unwitnessed while I headed back to my cabin for some rest and to recover. That means by morning their blood trails are gone. It took me two and a half days (!) to find the one that had the arrow in his rump. While returning back to the cabin from that, I encountered a third (?) wolf which I shot and killed on the spot. So now I have the meat of two wolves, and I still have to find the second one from three days ago. 

In such circumstances, it would be nice if circling crows spawned above these dead animals after they have lain undiscovered for 24 hours or so. That would help locate them if I'm still looking for them. Helps with deer, too! Would it be too hard to write a script that an animal triggers a timer when it dies by our hand (wolf-killed deer don't count, as the wolves usually eat all the meat then). If not discovered within a specific time period (say 24 hours), then circling crows would spawn above it?

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Maybe but the player killed carcasses do degrade and disappear after a day or two. Unless you're attacking everything on the map there shouldn't be too many birds about.

On the whole, I think it's a good idea. I too have lost animals (blood trails need a lot of tuning) and it'd be nice to have an alternative way of finding them.

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3 hours ago, hauteecolerider said:

So, crows circle the preplaced corpses and deer carcasses. Nice touch, it really adds to the immersion.

However, after having fought off two wolves in rapid succession at the end of the day, I had to leave them to die unwitnessed while I headed back to my cabin for some rest and to recover. That means by morning their blood trails are gone. It took me two and a half days (!) to find the one that had the arrow in his rump. While returning back to the cabin from that, I encountered a third (?) wolf which I shot and killed on the spot. So now I have the meat of two wolves, and I still have to find the second one from three days ago. 

In such circumstances, it would be nice if circling crows spawned above these dead animals after they have lain undiscovered for 24 hours or so. That would help locate them if I'm still looking for them. Helps with deer, too! Would it be too hard to write a script that an animal triggers a timer when it dies by our hand (wolf-killed deer don't count, as the wolves usually eat all the meat then). If not discovered within a specific time period (say 24 hours), then circling crows would spawn above it?

+1

Very neat idea. Actually, there should also be some wolves hanging around a deer or bear carcass after a day. 

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8 hours ago, Hotzn said:

+1

Very neat idea. Actually, there should also be some wolves hanging around a deer or bear carcass after a day. 

More likely a bear. They have a great sense of smell as well and wouldn't mind eating some meat :)

Trick is if the carcass is frozen nothing will smell it so you likely will see neither bears nor wolves. The birds will still be there though. They see everything :shock:

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On April 15, 2016 at 5:13 PM, cekivi said:

Maybe but the player killed carcasses do degrade and disappear after a day or two. Unless you're attacking everything on the map there shouldn't be too many birds about.

On the whole, I think it's a good idea. I too have lost animals (blood trails need a lot of tuning) and it'd be nice to have an alternative way of finding them.

Out of curiosity, I killed four wolves on the ice in CH the other day. I didn't completely harvest their carcasses because I wanted to see if new wolves spawned before these carcasses disappeared. I learned that the wolf carcass lasts for three days before they completely disappear (I only harvested the meat, left the hide and guts). That may differ from other folks' experience. This was in my current Voyager play through. When I returned to CH from ML, I shot/fought two wolves close to sundown. It took me two and a half days to find one of them and recover my arrow, at which point the meat was down to 54%. Interesting . . .

That's when it occurred to me that it would be helpful to have crows circling them. At least I could find the second one and get the meat too . . .

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2 minutes ago, cekivi said:

That seems consistent with my games. I think the amount of meat, gut and hide left may also play a factor? I'm just guessing though since a fully harvest carcass tends to disappear the next day.

I've seen that too. That's why I try not to fully harvest the wolves. Usually I get the meat, though sometimes I get the hide and guts instead, so I always have something to repair my coat with . . . 

 

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I started leaving the guts, just because I had so many already; then it occurred to me too that doing this might delay the respawning of wolves. It seems to work. I tried only taking some, rather than all, of the bear guts as well, but I'm not sure about how that affects the time it takes the carcass to rot away because I don't kill bear often enough to tell.

Regarding crows: when I first started the game, I used to follow the flocks flying overhead on the assumption that they would be heading towards a carcass - until I saw some flying into the side of a mountain and realised that this probably wasn't the case... maybe that could be incorporated, if they decide to include the spawning of crows circling over player-killed animals? It would certainly help cut down on arrow-theft.

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16 hours ago, Pillock said:

 

Regarding crows: when I first started the game, I used to follow the flocks flying overhead on the assumption that they would be heading towards a carcass - until I saw some flying into the side of a mountain and realised that this probably wasn't the case... maybe that could be incorporated, if they decide to include the spawning of crows circling over player-killed animals? It would certainly help cut down on arrow-theft.

At the moment, only circling crows indicate a corpse or carcass. Flying crows indicate a time change (either morning or dusk) or the potential onset of bad weather.

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