0004113: Large grazers (elephants and giraffes) can't eat fast enough to keep from starving

(0015709)
Footkerchief (manager)
2011-03-03 09:51

Reminder sent to: Alumine

Are you able to rule out 0004018 as the cause?

(0015714)
Naros (reporter)
2011-03-03 12:59
edited on: 2011-03-03 13:00

The only way Elephants will be able to keep from starving is if they ate every tick, and happened to stand on a magical tile of grass that is never depleted.

As it is understood:
1 time unit adds 1 hunger
Eating reduces hunger by 12 units.
Eating or moving requires 10 time units.

Eat + Move = 20 time units. So any grazing creature that has a GRAZER value of less than 20 will starve even on perfect grazing grounds.

Browsing trees will likely solve it for elephants, so it's a matter of waiting for the BROWSER ability to be implemented, in addition to animal feed like hay?

(0015882)
Alumine (reporter)
2011-03-07 03:18

yes. 0004018 is definitely not the cause.

animal feed would be awesome!

(0015910)
hyperactiveChipmunk (reporter)
2011-03-07 11:39

Confirming. My war rhinos suffer the same fate, it seems.

Nobody fears my emaciated, waif-like rhinos. >8(

(0015914)
DoctorZuber (reporter)
2011-03-07 11:45

Noo.... How can we have mighty rampaging elephants if they're all dead!?

Sounds like this calls for a raw edit till this gets fixed proper-like.

(0015986)
Rhenaya (reporter)
2011-03-08 20:25

this is even a problem with water buffalos (60 grazer), only cows and upward (120 grazer) dont seem to starve while grazing

(0017062)
Dekon (reporter)
2011-04-04 12:00

Can confirm - Yaks seem to barely eventually starve after a long, grueling period - despite being able to constantly consume.

Honestly it just sounds like the amount of hunger eating reduces needs to be upped, with perhaps more food being required for smaller animals (referencing wiki chart on pasture). Yaks shouldn't have to eat -ALL- the time to survive anyway, nor should elephants. While feed/browsing may help, Yaks still won't browse, even when browser is introduced - so they'd still die.

(0017063)
ellindsey (reporter)
2011-04-04 12:06

I've been able to keep yaks alive, and even breed them, but only by creating very large pastures and rotating them to new grazing ground after they destroy all the grass in the old one. Also, I keep numbers down to less than half a dozen adults.

(0017065)
Dekon (reporter)
2011-04-04 12:46

All I had were two yaks on a 17x21 pasture, and they certainly hadn't consumed everything. They both starved to death.

What -MIGHT- have happened is this - The Yaks were hungry when I put them on the pasture. Hunger slows down activities...which might include eating. If hunger slows down eating, then the Yaks would eat slower, and thus would not be able to maintain themselves. This would snowball, and especially a starving Yak would not be able to survive long.

(0017356)
Alumine (reporter)
2011-04-14 06:40

well I modified the grazervalues to a minimum of 100, nothing starved so far.

(0017367)
kwieland (reporter)
2011-04-14 12:59

It could be related to the bug that makes animals graze only on the north (west?) corner of a pasture.

(0017926)
Alumine (reporter)
2011-06-03 07:19

I think everything on DF starts in the northwest if they have the choice.
If you channel a square in the ground for example, they'll start in the northwest

(0018243)
theothersteve7 (reporter)
2011-07-15 07:09

From a balance standpoint, the amount of open grassy space you need per animal is awfully high. High enough that animals bigger than alpacas and goats aren't really worth it in practice, especially with milking and shearing where they are, and that cat farming seems like a logical course of action for leather. Dwarves are traditionally decked out in kitten leather.

Raising grazervalues seems like a very wise decision; 60-100 seems a fair minimum given animal stupidity. You may wish to make animal hides not all a constant 1 per animal as well, and to change the milking increment per species.

(0018260)
Kumquat (reporter)
2011-07-16 10:11

Indeed. From a realism standpoint, the amount of feed grazers need isn't linearly related to mass. A vole, for instance, needs to eat about its own weight a day to survive, and it's rather ludicrous to imagine an elephant doing so. Larger animals have slower metabolism, and probably also relatively more 'low-metabolism' tissue like fat and bones. A square-root relationship would probably be closer to realism, so you'd get 3 sheep 40kg each eating as much as a single 400kg cow.

Then again, animals from harsh biomes, such as yaks and camels, should thrive with even less, but that probably goes beyond automatic tweaking.

(0018267)
kwieland (reporter)
2011-07-17 07:58

I was thinking about this yesterday as I was out hiking. Does it make sense for elephants to live any climate? Probably not. But, you could raise them anywhere with the ability to stock food and feed them "hay" or some such feeding mechanism.

(0018754)
kenoh (reporter)
2011-09-23 21:46

Posted this in the suggestion forums. Kumquat has the exact right idea. For the grand majority of animals, for every double in size their metabolism only goes up 75%. It's called Kleiber's Law. I would bet that Toady would like to see the math for it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleiber%27s_law [^]

(0023500)
nshapter (reporter)
2012-08-28 08:54

^Bump^

This is still the case in 34.11

I have an approximately 20x20 pasture with nothing but one starving Rhinoceros assigned.

(0030033)
ptb_ptb (reporter)
2014-09-08 07:37
edited on: 2014-09-08 07:39

Water buffalo still starving in 40.11

Issue History
Date Modified	Username	Field	Change
2011-03-03 09:49	Alumine	New Issue
2011-03-03 09:51	Footkerchief	Note Added: 0015709
2011-03-03 09:51	Footkerchief	Relationship added	related to 0004018
2011-03-03 09:52	Footkerchief	Summary	Elephants and similar dying => Elephants and giraffes can't eat fast enough to keep from starving
2011-03-03 12:09	Hieronymous Alloy	Issue Monitored: Hieronymous Alloy
2011-03-03 12:59	Naros	Note Added: 0015714
2011-03-03 13:00	Naros	Note Edited: 0015714	View Revisions
2011-03-03 13:47	Khym Chanur	Issue Monitored: Khym Chanur
2011-03-07 03:18	Alumine	Note Added: 0015882
2011-03-07 11:39	hyperactiveChipmunk	Note Added: 0015910
2011-03-07 11:45	DoctorZuber	Note Added: 0015914
2011-03-08 20:25	Rhenaya	Note Added: 0015986
2011-03-27 07:32	Footkerchief	Relationship added	related to 0004354
2011-03-27 20:49	Footkerchief	Relationship added	related to 0004367
2011-04-02 13:49	Footkerchief	Summary	Elephants and giraffes can't eat fast enough to keep from starving => Large grazers (elephants and giraffes) can't eat fast enough to keep from starving
2011-04-04 12:00	Dekon	Note Added: 0017062
2011-04-04 12:06	ellindsey	Note Added: 0017063
2011-04-04 12:46	Dekon	Note Added: 0017065
2011-04-04 13:25	Footkerchief	Relationship added	related to 0004446
2011-04-14 06:40	Alumine	Note Added: 0017356
2011-04-14 12:59	kwieland	Note Added: 0017367
2011-06-03 07:19	Alumine	Note Added: 0017926
2011-07-15 07:09	theothersteve7	Note Added: 0018243
2011-07-16 10:11	Kumquat	Note Added: 0018260
2011-07-17 07:58	kwieland	Note Added: 0018267
2011-07-22 16:51	Vherid	Issue Monitored: Vherid
2011-09-23 21:46	kenoh	Note Added: 0018754
2011-12-07 09:28	Footkerchief	Relationship added	related to 0004962
2012-08-28 08:54	nshapter	Note Added: 0023500
2012-08-30 04:07	Knight Otu	Relationship added	has duplicate 0006181
2014-08-09 11:32	Footkerchief	Assigned To	=> Footkerchief
2014-08-09 11:32	Footkerchief	Status	new => confirmed
2014-08-09 11:57	4maskwolf	Issue Monitored: 4maskwolf
2014-09-08 07:37	ptb_ptb	Note Added: 0030033
2014-09-08 07:39	ptb_ptb	Note Edited: 0030033	View Revisions
2014-09-12 11:44	Toady One	Status	confirmed => resolved
2014-09-12 11:44	Toady One	Fixed in Version	=> Next Version
2014-09-12 11:44	Toady One	Resolution	open => fixed
2014-09-12 11:44	Toady One	Assigned To	Footkerchief => Toady One
2014-09-25 21:29	4maskwolf	Issue End Monitor: 4maskwolf
2015-01-03 13:41	Footkerchief	Relationship added	related to 0004637

Notes
(0015709) Footkerchief (manager) 2011-03-03 09:51	Reminder sent to: Alumine Are you able to rule out 0004018 as the cause?

(0015714) Naros (reporter) 2011-03-03 12:59 edited on: 2011-03-03 13:00	The only way Elephants will be able to keep from starving is if they ate every tick, and happened to stand on a magical tile of grass that is never depleted. As it is understood: 1 time unit adds 1 hunger Eating reduces hunger by 12 units. Eating or moving requires 10 time units. Eat + Move = 20 time units. So any grazing creature that has a GRAZER value of less than 20 will starve even on perfect grazing grounds. Browsing trees will likely solve it for elephants, so it's a matter of waiting for the BROWSER ability to be implemented, in addition to animal feed like hay?

(0015882) Alumine (reporter) 2011-03-07 03:18	yes. 0004018 is definitely not the cause. animal feed would be awesome!

(0015910) hyperactiveChipmunk (reporter) 2011-03-07 11:39	Confirming. My war rhinos suffer the same fate, it seems. Nobody fears my emaciated, waif-like rhinos. >8(

(0015914) DoctorZuber (reporter) 2011-03-07 11:45	Noo.... How can we have mighty rampaging elephants if they're all dead!? Sounds like this calls for a raw edit till this gets fixed proper-like.

(0015986) Rhenaya (reporter) 2011-03-08 20:25	this is even a problem with water buffalos (60 grazer), only cows and upward (120 grazer) dont seem to starve while grazing

(0017062) Dekon (reporter) 2011-04-04 12:00	Can confirm - Yaks seem to barely eventually starve after a long, grueling period - despite being able to constantly consume. Honestly it just sounds like the amount of hunger eating reduces needs to be upped, with perhaps more food being required for smaller animals (referencing wiki chart on pasture). Yaks shouldn't have to eat -ALL- the time to survive anyway, nor should elephants. While feed/browsing may help, Yaks still won't browse, even when browser is introduced - so they'd still die.

(0017063) ellindsey (reporter) 2011-04-04 12:06	I've been able to keep yaks alive, and even breed them, but only by creating very large pastures and rotating them to new grazing ground after they destroy all the grass in the old one. Also, I keep numbers down to less than half a dozen adults.

(0017065) Dekon (reporter) 2011-04-04 12:46	All I had were two yaks on a 17x21 pasture, and they certainly hadn't consumed everything. They both starved to death. What -MIGHT- have happened is this - The Yaks were hungry when I put them on the pasture. Hunger slows down activities...which might include eating. If hunger slows down eating, then the Yaks would eat slower, and thus would not be able to maintain themselves. This would snowball, and especially a starving Yak would not be able to survive long.

(0017356) Alumine (reporter) 2011-04-14 06:40	well I modified the grazervalues to a minimum of 100, nothing starved so far.

(0017367) kwieland (reporter) 2011-04-14 12:59	It could be related to the bug that makes animals graze only on the north (west?) corner of a pasture.

(0017926) Alumine (reporter) 2011-06-03 07:19	I think everything on DF starts in the northwest if they have the choice. If you channel a square in the ground for example, they'll start in the northwest

(0018243) theothersteve7 (reporter) 2011-07-15 07:09	From a balance standpoint, the amount of open grassy space you need per animal is awfully high. High enough that animals bigger than alpacas and goats aren't really worth it in practice, especially with milking and shearing where they are, and that cat farming seems like a logical course of action for leather. Dwarves are traditionally decked out in kitten leather. Raising grazervalues seems like a very wise decision; 60-100 seems a fair minimum given animal stupidity. You may wish to make animal hides not all a constant 1 per animal as well, and to change the milking increment per species.

(0018260) Kumquat (reporter) 2011-07-16 10:11	Indeed. From a realism standpoint, the amount of feed grazers need isn't linearly related to mass. A vole, for instance, needs to eat about its own weight a day to survive, and it's rather ludicrous to imagine an elephant doing so. Larger animals have slower metabolism, and probably also relatively more 'low-metabolism' tissue like fat and bones. A square-root relationship would probably be closer to realism, so you'd get 3 sheep 40kg each eating as much as a single 400kg cow. Then again, animals from harsh biomes, such as yaks and camels, should thrive with even less, but that probably goes beyond automatic tweaking.

(0018267) kwieland (reporter) 2011-07-17 07:58	I was thinking about this yesterday as I was out hiking. Does it make sense for elephants to live any climate? Probably not. But, you could raise them anywhere with the ability to stock food and feed them "hay" or some such feeding mechanism.

(0018754) kenoh (reporter) 2011-09-23 21:46	Posted this in the suggestion forums. Kumquat has the exact right idea. For the grand majority of animals, for every double in size their metabolism only goes up 75%. It's called Kleiber's Law. I would bet that Toady would like to see the math for it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleiber%27s_law [^]

(0023500) nshapter (reporter) 2012-08-28 08:54	^Bump^ This is still the case in 34.11 I have an approximately 20x20 pasture with nothing but one starving Rhinoceros assigned.

(0030033) ptb_ptb (reporter) 2014-09-08 07:37 edited on: 2014-09-08 07:39	Water buffalo still starving in 40.11