Today, we thought we'd give everyone a preview of the hunting system that our coders are currently hard at work on! Buckle up, friends, this one is gonna be a ride.
When you enter the "Hunting" portion of the site, you'll be taken to a list of subzones, grouped by zone. These are the same areas that you'll be exploring in other upcoming game features. Once you've selected the area you want to hunt in, you will need to select the group of cats that you'd like to hunt with from your pride, up to eight in a hunting party.
It's important to consider your male to female ratio, as they serve two different purposes during the hunt.
Upon entering the hunting area, you will begin to encounter prey animals and competing predators. Let's say that you've chosen the Boreal Slope, where you have a 10% chance of encountering a herd of six Hipparion (prey) and a 5% chance of encountering a pair of hungry Smilodon (predator).
On your first hunt in the area, your hunting party encounters the herd of six Hipparion. You are then presented with information reaching each of the six Hipparion: their size, scent, and appearance. These clues lead you to realize that one of the horses is sick, and thus slower than the others. You direct your females to hunt that Hipparion.
The site calculates the speed stat of the each huntress. if no huntress has a higher speed stat than the selected Hipparion, check one fails. You receive a text notification that the horse was too fast to catch. If at least one huntress has higher speed than the Hipparion, the first check passes. The huntresses catch the Hipparion.
The site then runs a strength check where the strength stat of all huntresses in the party is added together and compared to the horse's strength + endurance. If the combined strength of the huntresses is higher, they kill the Hipparion and meat is deposited into the hunting party's meat cache. The meat cache appears at the bottom of the hunting interface. You do not own this meat yet. This is simply the amount of meat that would be deposited into your den storage if you ended the hunt now.
Rather than end the hunt now, you decide to try another hunt and see if you can add more meat to your cache. After all, once you leave the area, a cooldown is triggered which disallows your return for a full four hours!
The cat with the lowest endurance stat in your party determines the number of hunts you may attempt. Their endurance is divided by 10 to determine the number of attempts you may make. Hunts are hard capped at 20 per area per day.
After the hunt succeeds or fails, you are presented with two options: Go Home or Continue Hunting. If you choose to Go Home, the meat in the hunt's meat cache is added to their den storage. If you choose to Continue Hunting, the interface refreshes and chooses again from the subzone encounter table.
This time, your hunting party encounters the pair of angry Smilodon!
You may choose to fight or flee. As your huntresses are busy protecting your meat cache from the competing predators and other scavengers, the male cats you've brought along must engage the Smilodon if you choose to fight. That's why the male to female ratio is so important! More females will make hunting larger game easier. More males will make fending off competing predators easier. Choose wisely! The best balance will be different in each area, and will depend heavily upon the stats of your cats.
If you to flee, the speed stat of the hunters is compared to the speed stat of the predators chasing them. If the speed of the hunters is at least twice the speed of the predators, all of the meat cache is added to den storage. If the speed of the hunters is less than twice the speed of the predators but still higher, only half of the hunt's meat cache is added to the den storage. If the speed of the hunters is lower than that of the predators, your hunters will lose their cache to the competing predators entirely.
If you to fight, the site calculates the strength plus endurance of the hunter males and compares it to the strength plus endurance of the Smilodon pair. If your cats lose, they are chased from the subzone and lose the entire meat cache. If they win, you can keep hunting.
When the hunt concludes, either by your cats being chased away by competing predators, running out of hunts, or deciding enough meat has been gathered, a 4 hour cooldown is triggered and the player cannot hunt again for four hours in any zone. Any meat in your hunting party meat cache is deposited into your den storage for all members of your pride to feast upon.
Part One of Hunting Subzones is coming soon!
