Oh goodness, can I begin to say how many trappers I have nearly lost to encountering and enemy, and then preceding to run away from civilization into a larger pack of enemies. So many man. So many.
I mean, don’t get me wrong guys, the current system of “TERROR” path finding is extremely accurate as far as actual human instinct goes. “Oh lord that thing is trying to kill me,” you think, you either stand your ground and fight the thing or you run blindly as far away from the thing as possible. Y’know, basic fight or flight, its a true fact that you don’t really care where you’re going as long as it is away.
However comma as accurate as it may be from the human standpoint, it is increasingly frustrating from a gameplay perspective. Like a single tiny ent chasing my trapper over half-way across the map before my footman was able to finish off the ones attacking her and then finally having to go track them down. OR running directly into a giant zombie. Y’know, definitely stuff an actual human would do, but still. A little frustrating.
So basically my suggestion is this: Have hearthlings attempt to path find towards civilization during the “running away” animation. I have no idea how possible that actually is from a coding standpoint, but maybe to avoid the hearthling running smack into the enemy if it’s between them and home, maybe have them circle around the enemy. Maybe this could involve the spirit level in some way, like, the higher it is, the more likely they are to circle around the enemy and run home, and the lower it is, the more likely it is for them to throw logic to the wind and run blindly in the opposite direction. I don’t know. Anyone have an idea you think would work better?
Lol, I found many of my own feelings listed above…
My own solution is to give up and use workarounds: that is why I have a system for locking all hearthlings in especially when danger is around. (use fence to block entrance after recalling all hearthlings) And my trapper only has one real working area outside close to the settlement gate, and a fake one within the settlement wall that he can “play” with when he is locked in. Oh, and when I am too busy to keep babysitting him, I turn the Trapper’s job to “off”. Just promote him to shepherd as soon as possible and you won’t need Trappers any more (use rabbit farms though the food/pelt harvest will have to be manual).
Hello there! the best way to save them is to enter “Town alert mode” which causes all your non-military hearthlings to run to your blue flag this worked for me everytime.
That’s all well and good I suppose, but personally, especially in the first few days of hard mode, I really like to avoid using Town Alert Mode as much as possible. Every second of farming and potion making and resource collection is really precious, and as long as my footman is keeping the minions aggro’d and away from the others, I really don’t like to halt everyone’s work just to save one hearthling. Like honestly, I know there is a way to save your hearthling in this situation, and I do appreciate that fact, but I still think the system could be smarter so you don’t have to halt the work of everyone else for one straggler.
(I mean I suppose there is a way do do this currently with the party system (assuming you can actually put non-military hearthlings into a party) by just throwing the straggler in a spare party and directing them back to the city, but I mean, for a game that is all about avoiding micromanagement, that’s kind of a good bit of micromanaging )
I do agree that town alert mode is probably the best solution once you reach mid-late game, but as far as early game goes, it’s just a little inconvenient
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