Sundew Farms Research Division Presents: Animal Mechanics

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by SunTide, Oct 26, 2016.

  1. Ghostly Fox

    Ghostly Fox Heliosphere

    There's always his Twitter. Could send a message to him, mentioning that you found what seems like a fairly major bug, and provide the link to this thread.
     
    • SunTide

      SunTide Scruffy Nerf-Herder

      Well yes, but I never said hay affected happiness, I said it affected friendship :)
       
      • StarPeanut

        StarPeanut 2.7182818284590...

        Sorry, I meant this part:

        If your animals are eating hay, it's not really going to matter when you pet them, because eating hay doesn't affect happiness. Petting time is only super important when animals are eating grass, because, as you point out, you need to either pet them before they eat or pet them late enough that they've lost some happiness.

        Anyway, I think we're both on the same page and this is just adding more noise to the thread -- sorry about that. :) Grass good. Petting before grazing, or later at night, good. Bugs not-good.
         
        • Elysiia

          Elysiia Aquatic Astronaut

          Is there a way to prompt animals to go to sleep without you having to go to sleep? It seems as though you get a penalty to produce every single day if you stay up past 18:00 which is just... silly.
          It would make more sense for the animals to go to sleep by themselves if you close the barn, without the need for the farmer to go to sleep as well. That would simultaneously add a significance to the action of closing the barn. Pretty solidary (...or silly?) animals in Stardew valley, if they only sleep when the farmer does...


          Looking through all the data you guys have gathered it seems as though this mechanism:

          , with its cut-off happiness score of 200 is way too severe and only reasonably obtainable if you go to bed early (depending on how quickly happiness falls from 255 to <200 after 18:00), heavily penalizing the animal farm player unless they lose 1/4th of their day.
           
          • StarPeanut

            StarPeanut 2.7182818284590...

            No, sorry. When I talked about the animals staying up late, I actually meant you, the farmer, staying up late. Animals do go to sleep at a certain time, beyond which if you try to pet them it will say they're sleeping, but that's irrelevant for the purpose of calculating happiness. All that matters is what time you end your farm day.
             
            • Elysiia

              Elysiia Aquatic Astronaut

              So that basically means that unless you end your farm day early you get penalized in the animal produce department simply because the only way to offset the drop in happiness from a long farm day, i.e. petting, is no longer available at that time and happiness is caculated first thing the next day.
              To me that just feels wrong and unbalanced.
               
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              • SunTide

                SunTide Scruffy Nerf-Herder

                Oops, typo there. I meant to say grass. Yeah, we're in agreement here. Thanks for the code dive
                 
                • SunTide

                  SunTide Scruffy Nerf-Herder

                  Did some more measurements, and every 10 minutes (game time) past 6:00 PM costs you 2% happiness, which (probably) corresponds to 5.1 points.

                  The more I think about this system, the less sense it makes. Having a happiness score of 199 hits you with a devastating penalty of -398, but being at a suicidally depressed 0 gives no penalty at all. This makes no sense. Going to bed at 8:50 PM sets your happiness to 198.9 (assuming grass was eaten), which is a ball-stomping -397.8 penalty. Going to bed at 2:00 AM sets your happiness to 10.2, which is a mere -20.2 penalty. Penalties get truncated at 150, but still.

                  I just tested this empirically, and going to bed at 1:50 AM resulted in all four cows having large milk, and going to bed at 8:50 PM resulted in all small milks. That's only one trial, but that's a night and day signal right there.

                  None of this makes any sense. The bug isn't even the problem anymore, it's the design itself. Low scores should give penalties, medium scores should give neutral results, and high scores should give bonuses. Right now, the rules follow some kind of crazy reverse-Blackjack rules that result in low scores being neutral, medium scores being horribly negative, and high scores being positive.
                   
                    Last edited: Oct 26, 2016
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                  • metalax

                    metalax Subatomic Cosmonaut

                    @StarPeanut If you've been code-diving, would you be able to confirm/deny the animal attack random event if the coop/barn door is left open? Or if animals are left trapped outside at night?
                     
                    • Elysiia

                      Elysiia Aquatic Astronaut

                      I wish I could mod. It feels like two things must happen. For one, the decrease in happiness after 18:00 needs to be reworked so that animals' happiness only decreases when left outside or are inside with the barn darn open (so a static happiness score after 18:00 providing the animals are inside with the barn door closed, irrelevant of when the farmer goes to bed). Even if the happiness formula is all wrong, it makes no sense for animals to produce lower quality produce when the farmer goes to sleep late at night. If they are in their barn with the door closed at night (so after 18:00) that is realistically all that matters (as produce quality should be about the animals getting enough sleep in a comfortable environment). Secondly, the happiness formula (see below) needs to be reworked, a multiplier of -2 for scores below 200 favours scores closer to 0 and penalizes higher scores which makes no sense when higher scores correlate to happier animals...

                       
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                      • SunTide

                        SunTide Scruffy Nerf-Herder

                        Agree on all points. I take back the comment in the OP about CA being clinically sane :p

                        I would just as soon not have to have the door closed, since I feel it's just busy work, but I don't have very strong feelings about this.

                        And of course, the wrap around bug needs to be fixed.

                        The hell of it is, not only is animal produce totally weird and confusing to optimize (petting is good, unless they've just eaten, then it's the worst thing you can do! High happiness is good! Low happiness is fine! Medium happiness is a disaster!), but it's also totally irrelevant. Artisinal goods like cheese and mayo almost entirely outperform raw goods, and respect neither size nor quality. Worse, the Artisan perk affects these goods and the Rancher perk does not, so the best way to raise animals is to... take the farmer path instead of the rancher path?
                         
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                        • nevyn21

                          nevyn21 Cosmic Narwhal

                          The Rancher perk affects certain Artisan Goods like Duck Mayo and Cloth. There could be others, just needs tested. I just converted my farm to all sheep last week or I would test it myself. I can only confirm that Cloth sells for 564g with the Rancher perk instead of the base 470g.
                           
                          • metalax

                            metalax Subatomic Cosmonaut

                            Not quite. Size does effect the quality of the Cheese or Mayo produced. Using a large milk/egg always produces a gold star cheese/mayo.
                             
                            • Declension

                              Declension Cosmic Narwhal

                              The random attack on an animal only happens if an animal is trapped outside. Which means you closed the barn/coop doors while the animal was still outside. Leaving the doors open does not trigger random attacks. I've left barn doors open for years at a time (only closing during winter). I did once test leaving an animal outside to avoid the animal eating from the auto feeder in the morning and that's when the attack happened. (Some part of me was thinking if the animal stayed outside during the night it would eat from the pasture and I wouldn't have to bring them in. Rip piggy.)
                               
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                              • Shiverwarp

                                Shiverwarp Starship Captain

                                Just for confirmation: Until the bugginess is fixed, the most consistent way to get high happiness (And therefore high rate of large, high quality products), is to only let animals outside to eat after petting them.

                                Also, I can confirm that rancher does have an effect on price of Duck Mayonnaise. Mine is selling for 450 instead of 375 with Rancher only.

                                EDIT: Just one quick question, what happens if you leave the doors open on a rainy day?

                                DOUBLE EDIT: Nevermind, just re-read about what I misunderstood about "going to bed late" and it's really just broken, so no way to really avoid the broken system unless you go to bed at 6PM everyday. Gross.
                                 
                                  Last edited: Oct 26, 2016
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                                • Declension

                                  Declension Cosmic Narwhal

                                  From what I gather, sensitive animals like goats/rabbits/ducks/sheep take a small shit to their affection on stormy/rainy days. My cows and chickens never seem to have a problem.
                                   
                                  • nevyn21

                                    nevyn21 Cosmic Narwhal

                                    Finally grabbed a screenshot of Cloth being affected by Rancher perk:

                                    [​IMG]

                                    6768/12=564
                                     
                                    • SunTide

                                      SunTide Scruffy Nerf-Herder

                                      Now that I know how to measure happiness properly, this is easy to check. There is zero effect on both happiness and friendship if you leave the door open during a rain, at least for cows.

                                      Yeah. I think that CA was traumatized by farm animals or something. He seems to have this almost refined hatred of the animal portion of the game.
                                       
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                                      • metalax

                                        metalax Subatomic Cosmonaut

                                        So Cloth and Duck Mayo are confirmed effected by Rancher. How about regular Mayo or Cheeses?
                                         
                                        • Shiverwarp

                                          Shiverwarp Starship Captain

                                          Somehow I doubt this was purposeful, considering the strangeness with how intermediate values for happiness absolutely trash your products, where extremely low values leave you on even footing.
                                           

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