Animal interaction

[Carduus]

In real life, there are often predators that will ignore some other animals because they're either too small or they perform some sort of beneficial task for the predator. Right now, I just see the aggressive animals attacking anything that moves. Could there be more complex relations between animals in the Zalanthan ecosystem?

Furthermore, in a few fantasy genres, there are often predators big enough to have a taste for horseflesh, and they often prove to be an annoyance as they attempt to grab your mount from you. Arm has some of the biggest predators I've seen. But wandering through Arm, I have yet to come upon any predators that will attack my kank. Now an inix, I could see someone thinking twice about attacking. But when you get to the biggest of the big predators, wouldn't they be more interested in the meal your mount would provide rather than eating you? Yet I've never seen one even try.

Is there a reason for this? Maybe mounts aren't considered to be animals in the coded mob sense until you dismount them? I'm not sure. Just curious about this, as it would add a level of annoyance as well as of direct pain and suffering. Something eats your kank in the middle of the desert, and it will be scary times ahead for you. Anyways, it's just a thought.

There are some animals that attack your mount. Won't say where though, or what for that matter.

I think there are some selective predators, for instance, it seems that Verrin hawks will sometimes attack kylori or cilops, but I really haven't seen them attack other animals.

Adding on to what Carduus said, I'd like to see some animals -do- something to these other animals they kill. A pack of gortok kill a tembo, or even come across an already dead one? Have em spit out some echoes about them chomping and chewing the flesh, then make the corpse ldesc something like this...

The body of a tembo is here, flesh torn and splayed

Or something like that. If anyone likes this idea I'll write up and send some of these echoes into the MUD account, as if they don't hear from me enough anyway  :oops:

From what I remember of the Dark Sun world, Kanks taste horrible due to some chemical they secrete throughout their flesh as a natural defense against predators, so this may be an IC reason for what you have encountered.  Ever eatten kank flesh either in arm?  Perhaps this is why too.

[creeper386]

Well, I do beleive people do eat kank in Zalanthas. Beleive I've seen it about some places. But normally I wouldn't think a kank would really provide a whole lot of meat, or really nutritional substanance for the most part. Which could be plenty of reason why other animals avoid it just because it's not worth the trouble, but thats just my take on things.

I couldn't say for sure either, but it seems animals are alittle more intelligent for the most part. What I'd like to see is for pack animals to be more pack like. They won't attack certain things unless they have others along with them and such(Like gortok), but for the most part the animals that really don't get eatten are the ones the others can't find. Normally in dessert like enviroments anything will eat anything else.

Creeper

[Carnage]

Ever eatten kank flesh either in arm?

Yeah. Kank steaks are in.

[Savak]

The short answer is, we haven't really expanded the artificial intelligence of critters very much on the whole, although a few specific ones have been.  This is something we continue to look at, but we face a couple of hindrances.

Most of the extra AI currently comes from scripts attached to the critter, which is great but relatively more resource consuming.  With a special script on EVERY single loading critter, it might (or might not) slow us detectably.  Meaning.. the preference would be to include this kind of thing more in the compiled code.  However, the natural place for this would be as part and parcel of race definition -- but there's not really a standardized place for this kind of thing as part of the racial template.

So, meanwhile I think what will happen is people will write scripts as good ideas get brought up.  With a little luck someone will create a standardized script which can be copied and only a few variables changed based on the critter.  With much more luck than that, some sort of template will be implanted in the code, with null defaults so all the old critters won't HAVE to be updated at the same time.

-Savak

I play it off as the same reason scrab travel seemingly together then attack each other. They dont see each other in a way as they'd view humans I guess. I dont know much of insect thinking, but I would attack the biped thin thing before another gigantic insect (i.e. a kank).

There are animals that attack mounts though.

[Carduus]

Thanks for the input. It makes a lot more sense now.

[HaiWolfe]

Ever eatten kank flesh either in arm?

Isn't there that slaughterhouse in the Allanaki Commoners' quarter that butchers kanks?  (Hope that's not too IC.)

Yeah, I've heard about it a few times on the board. Well, Kank slaughterhosues at the very least.

[P-ton]

From what I remember of the Dark Sun world, Kanks taste horrible due to some chemical they secrete throughout their flesh as a natural defense against predators, so this may be an IC reason for what you have encountered.  Ever eatten kank flesh either in arm?  Perhaps this is why too.

There is a person in nak that sells kank food and i have eaten it, attennaes, legs , everything

[Angela Christine]

From what I remember of the Dark Sun world, Kanks taste horrible due to some chemical they secrete throughout their flesh as a natural defense against predators, so this may be an IC reason for what you have encountered.  Ever eatten kank flesh either in arm?  Perhaps this is why too.

There is a person in nak that sells kank food and i have eaten it, attennaes, legs , everything

It could be that that chemical exists in Arm, but they do something in the processing or cooking that neutralizes it.  Since most predators do not cook their food, kanks still taste nasty to them.

Just a thought.

AC