Thoughts on Feeding Animals

Suggestions
1

So, this was just brought up in the Livestream, with the introduction of the Chicken. Some of the ideas that were tossed around were having a stockpile placed in their pen, with a manual placement of the right food, or just having the shepard auto-fill the enclosure with the right kind of food, with different animals needing different kinds of food.

I was thinking that perhaps it could be something more like farming, in that if you want to micromanage all the food types, so goats get wheat and chickens get corn, then you get a better output (happier animals = more eggs/wool or higher quality meats, etc.) or you could just feed them whatever berries or other food items you have around, but you donā€™t get a benefit for doing so.

What suggestions do you guys have for how this might be implemented?

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2

If any of you guys have played the Harvest Moon series, the way it worked was each specific animal had their own feeding bin.

Maybe in Stonehearth, instead of it being each individual animal with an individual feeding bin, each type of animal (i.e. Chickens, Sheep, etc) will get a bin that your farmers can place food in.

You can make these bins as craftable items (Carpenter?) and have a worker or your farmer or whoever place it.

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3

Thatā€™s kinda what I was thinking for how to get food to the animals, but I think the real question is, what kind of food does each animal eat, if they need a specific type of food, and what are the penalties for either feeding them the wrong food, or not feeding them at all?

4

Hmm, Iā€™m not actually sure what types of food they eat.

As for the consequences of not feeding them or feeding them the wrong items, maybe they can:

  • become sad (i.e. produce less food / wool / other byproducts)
  • contract some kinda disease, or (if thatā€™s not something that will eventually be in the game) they can make the other animals around them sad
  • die (morbid, I know)
  • turn feral (attack your Hearthlings)
  • maybe be unable to reproduce?
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5

Perhaps the Shepard (or who ever takes care of the animals) can craft generic or specific animal food. Whatever animals eat. Corn meal?

Shepard (or carpenter) should also be able craft a brush to tend the animals and increase happiness. I think Harvest Moon did this too.

6

Make sure to get plenty of grain for your sheep, or their long-repressed predatory instincts may come back once again in the night! :yum:

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7

This could be handy for training an army of ultra violent battle sheep! 3 footmen and 20 or so cranky carnivorous sheep and the titans would tremble at their passing :smiley:

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8

Crafted food/water troughs are something Iā€™ve wanted for ages. Preferably from the mason, stone troughs are very traditional on farms and he could do with more recipes. I put a bird bath in all my pastures and pretend its a trough.

I see no reason why all the animals couldnā€™t just eat wheat, if they want to keep it simple. I think T&S did that. The problem with having a different food for every animal, is how does the player know what to feed them? Anyway, Iā€™m very excited to see chickens.

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9

I think for the sake of simplicity, youā€™re right. Having the animals eat a common food or crop would be much more straight forward. Even one of the crops currently in game would work, probably corn

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10

That was kinda my idea, with every animal able to eat some basic food, like all settlers could just eat berries or turnips and be fine. However, giving them different kinds of food increases their morale in the food category. In the same way, giving animals the kind of food (wheat, berries, corn etc.) would give you some boost to the animals effectiveness/production. That way, youā€™re not punished for not focusing on food production beyond the basics if thatā€™s not what you want to do, but people who want to micromanage that get some benefit from doing so.

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11

Ok here is my take how the animal feeding / farming system could work, sorry for the long post, just did a copy paste from word.

Change the name of the shepherd to Grazier - crook can stay the same

The ā€œGrazierā€ is responsible for catching, feeding, collecting produce (eggs, wool, meat) and dispatching animals. Other workers could pitch in with the collecting too.

Their work station is a bucket (made of stone or metal) depending on what level to be unlocked.

The stonemason can make a ā€œfeeding trothā€

The Grazier uses the bucket to make feed. At first this could just be a standard one feed suits all animals, but later on there could be feed recipes for what animals like.

If you want to make things a bit more in-depth, animals can have needs like food and shelter.

so think of it like this; Level 1 : pen only, Level 2 : pen and food, Level 3 : pen, food and
shelter, the higher the level the happier the animal the more produce they produce.

re: pastures, like the stock piles they can be sorted into what animal goes where.

If animals get hungry (food icon above head) they go to the
troth to eat. if the animal is starving they could have a sad face above head.
If the animal dies of starvation they ā€œpoofā€ into a pile of wool, egg
or milk. If anything to indicate a animal ā€œwasā€ here. I was thinking
a pile of bones but thought that might be to ā€œun-cutezieā€

Just what I came up with on the bus ride to the shops.

12

The only issue I see with this is how much you have to focus on feeding the animals. I want this kind of thing to be something I set up for, set up, and then forget about. That is, I make sure Iā€™m producing the right kinds of food, and that I have the delivery covered, and then I can go on with my day, kinda like with farming. Once Iā€™ve set it up, I donā€™t need to micromanage it as much as I need to micromanage the Carpenter or Weaver and the like. Just my personal preference.

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13

Yer I can see that, As I was thinking it up, I was going - oooo another game called ā€œstonehearth animalsā€

so yer a more simpler version, stonemason make feed troth, anyone can put crop food in (when empty) to feed animals and anyone can harvest them.

but I do like the idea of more effort put in, you get rewarded with more produce.

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14

A flock of chickens attacking me in real life is quite literally one of the most terrifying things I can think of

I like the idea of the Shepherd making a generic animal feed

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15

The animals we have so far donā€™t care so much about being fed.

Sheep will eat grasses as long as their paddock has it (and you canā€™t make a paddock on anything else). If the sheep haves a feeding trough that you put hay or corn or whatever in, theyā€™ll eat that too. A reference: Sheep 101: what sheep eat

A chicken will eat all the insects and seeds and such they can find in the grass where their range is. The chicken wonā€™t say no to extra food of course, but its not like theyā€™ll die without it. A reference: What should I feed my backyard chickens? - RSPCA Australia knowledgebase

Arguably, feed from troughs for your animals should only make them more productive (grow faster or bigger), rather than determine if they starve or not.

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16

I think we need to separate the animals in 2 categories.

  • Animals with less needs like sheep & chickens.
  • Animals with more/specific needs like cows or horses.

Less need animals would be tended by the shepherd,
while animals with more needs should be tended by the ā€˜Rancherā€™
(see the kickstarter example job tree)

I do think animals should have needs, otherwise it shouldnā€™t be considered a job I think.
This could also be reflected by the rewards and the animals mood. Normal cows produces ā€˜Milkā€™, but happy cows produce ā€˜Fine milkā€™. Animals that are not looked after should turn feral or die.

Also the shepherd need a dogā€¦

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17

That would be giving an unfair advantage to backers! Although, in the future, perhaps taming the more lovable wolves could be a thing? I dunnoā€¦ I guess tame wolves could be our ā€œdogsā€

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18

I donā€™t have any clear idea on how the player could manage the cattle feeding because it may become quite time consuming and finally not that interesting for the gameplay.
Now, if this task get automated, for example if the shepherdā€™s AI get the job, we may imagine something with the food available but not only with the base elements but also with the cooked food.
Basically it would be a priority list (or many if animals have too different diets) from basic to superior food including spoiled food (that could be a way to consume it in another mechanism).
So the shepherd would take from stockpile what he need and the best he can find and go feed the animals.
This can also be a pressure upon the player if there is too much cattle and not enough food production, hearthlings may starve because part of the stock was used for the animalsā€¦

19

My thoughts:

Add a new Food Type (alongside Meat, Vegetables, etc) called ā€œAnimal Feedā€.

Add one new recipe to the Cook called ā€œCorn Feedā€. Ingredients: One Corn.

Add one recipe to the Carpenter called ā€œTroughā€. Ingredients: One Wood.

The Trough is a storage container, like a crate, but it only holds food (any food).

When an animal is hungry, it will locate the nearest Trough. If one is not available, it will look for food that is placed on the ground (or in a Stockpile). Animals CANNOT get food from crates, chests, or other storage containers.

If there is Animal Feed available, it will eat that. If not, it will simply eat whatever food it can find.

If an animal eats Animal Feed, it temporarily reduces the time needed for it to produce itā€™s relevant goods: faster milk from cows, faster wool from sheep, faster eggs from chickens, etc.

Thatā€™s it.

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20

Are you me? But faster at typing?

I was in the middle of typing something very similar and so I agree with this guy entirely. This solution stays away from the micromanagement style solutions people seem to be pointing towards. I donā€™t want to spend my game time tending to animals needs. Itā€™s a town builder, I want to build towns. Everything else should be automated.

Iā€™d add, if you donā€™t feed your animals, they wander off and maul your farming patches. Rather than eat ā€˜anythingā€™ and I would move the food type to the shepherd.

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