Many saves ago, playing on the Forest Farm map, I had a baby cow wander off into the "mini secret woods" area and get stuck, unable to path back to the barn before falling asleep outside. I saw her there, tried clicking on her every which way in an attempt to get her back to the barn, tried leaving and re-entering the farm in hopes she'd teleport, no luck. All the other cows had returned and at some point I gave up trying to get the prodigal home and **SHUT THE BARN DOOR** so that the others would be happy / easy to pet/milk in the morning. When I went to bed that night there was a howling sound and the cow was never seen again. I was horrified, as I had not realized that losing livestock to a predator was even a possibility. I also had no idea until very, very recently that my own action in closing the barn door might have made any difference... I had seen discussions of animals teleporting through a closed door, and the possible impact of the barn door status on animal happiness, but nothing connecting it to a possible predator attack. Last week someone on the reddit forums told me that, if an animal falls asleep outside, the game checks for the status of that animal's assigned barn/coop, and that if the door is open, the predator event cannot take place. I can't check the code to confirm that, but yesterday I had a curious baby duck wander halfway across the map to pay a visit to Grandpa's Shrine and fall asleep outside. I left the coop door open, and the duck was safely right outside the coop with the other poultry first thing the next morning.
Rather than leaving and re-entering the map or your house, go in and out and back into that animal's barn / coop. I've always had them teleport back in on the second entering of the barn and then close the door. I didn't know predation was possible, but I'd call it a feature.
Correct. As per the wiki, it requires that the door to the animal shelter (barn or coop) be closed to have a chance of triggering the wolf event. The actual code for the event trigger is thus: Code: if (current.indoors != null && current.indoors is AnimalHouse && !current.animalDoorOpen && (current.indoors as AnimalHouse).animalsThatLiveHere.Count > (current.indoors as AnimalHouse).animals.Count && random.NextDouble() < (double)(1f / (float)farm.buildings.Count)) Notice where it say !current.animalDoorOpen? Yea, that means the door has to be closed in order for the check to occur.
If anyone has a screenshot of the other animals' dialogue after a predator attack, please add it to the wiki, or upload it here! I've been looking for one, but can't bring myself to put my little fur/feather babies in danger night after night hoping one of them will be killed. Sorry that happened to you @TaleSpinnerGames! It seems an odd thing for CA to add to the game, doesn't it? Especially considering he added the code to warp the animals to the inside of the barn/coop under certain circumstances. :/
It certainly took me by surprise when it happened! I'm just glad to know there's a simple way to prevent it!
I don't know why anyone even closes the barn/coop doors. I leave mine open all year, except Winter since they never go outside. Never lost an animal, and the happiness isn't affected. If they're stuck, wait until after 6pm, leave the farm map, wait for the clock to tick ten minutes, then go back and the animal is magically in the barn/coop. No problems.
Well, I had read somewhere that it does make a difference to animal happiness, though that could certainly be one of those "SDV legends" that has no basis in fact. The main reason I do it, though, is so I don't have to chase my animals all over the farm trying to make sure I have pet / milked / sheared them all. Would take all day.
Apparently at one point if you pet your animals after they had eaten fresh grass the happiness would overflow to 0; closing the barn doors at night would've help to prevent that bug. It's been fixed now, thankfully.
That's good to know cuz when one of my animals was too far from their barn and getting confused by my elaborate fence system, I would be like push/prodding them in the right direction. They eventually figured out where the door was and nobody was stuck outside. I gave up on the interior fences and just overplant grass now (was sectioning them off so they'd grow). Plus got rid of most of the animals. Just piggies now.
I think it's technically after 5pm, when they start heading into the barn, but I like to give them a chance to find their own way first. But it definitely works to leave the map for a tick or two of the clock, then go back in. All safely tucked away every time.
So, in the name of science I pulled up an old save where I have 4 nearly full barns & coops. After checking each building to make sure everyone was out, I closed the animal doors... and come 6:00 pm they all just blithely walked right through the closed doors and went back inside. The next day I changed tactics. After letting everyone out and reclosing all the doors, I made sure to go to bed around 5:00pm. That successfully trapped them outside, but there was no attack so they just all became grumpy. After another day or two of the same though, we had, err, success? Attached is the save from the day after the attack.
Thank you @MouseyPounds, this is going straight to the wiki! This is the only instance in which I will ever condone animal testing. (Seriously, you're awesome, thank you!)
Well, you're not evil just because you're mad! A mad scientist is just a crazy scientist and they can be both good and evil But anyway, this is very interesting! I've never had a wolf/coyote attack ever before but I've also never had an animal sleep outside ever before either so that makes perfect sense. Huh. I wonder if you can lock the animals outside by completely fencing them in without access to the barn/coop door?
I had heard about the predators but I didn't know that they wouldn't come if you left the door open. The only time the doors are shut is in the winter, or if I need them to stay in the barns to fix fences. I make fenced off areas to keep the critters where I want them and make it easier to pet and care for them. I really wish there was a fence that didn't deteriorate. Stone lasts longer than wood but it crumbles after a while. I have found that if I leave the crumbled fence in place till after the animals go in the barns they won't cross it and I can fix them with, mostly, ease. Building fences is one of the most time consuming things in the game. Because I have so many animals, 20 barn and 11 coop ones, I have to keep count as I pet them to make sure I get them all. I wish there was a way on the PS4 to point at an animal and know if I've pet it. Would also be great if the PS4 had mods/cheats to give the game some of the update style I've seen from PC users.
When you make the gold clock, the fences won't deteriorate nor will you get debris all over when the season changes. It *is* 10 million and pretty much the end of the game for me. I restarted with a different farm after the clock. Figured I was "done"!
Yeah, I've never been patient enough to save that much gold yet. I did find out that there is iron fencing that lasts much longer but you need tons of iron bars for it.
