Dogs (and corpse furnace problems)

[WCG]

Those dog packs are really tough! I can't outrun them, and I can't beat them without experienced characters and overwhelming odds. Worse yet, they sometimes won't leave after they win, so you can't survive the experience.

Yesterday, I imported my characters into a new game, so I could get fresh followers to recruit. I knew that buildings were buggy, and yes, they really are. After that, the walls around my town wouldn't keep anything out. A huge dog-pack - the biggest I've seen yet - ran in and wiped out everyone, then wouldn't leave, so I reloaded a saved game.

This time, I locked my people inside buildings (buildings wouldn't keep anything out, either, until I rebuilt the navmesh with Ctrl+Shift+F11, and they're still buggy), and rushed twenty more characters to the town to help in the defense. This time, we won, though with massive injuries.

Unfortunately, the dogs are only unconscious, not dead, and they seem to heal faster without medical care than my characters do with it. They keep standing up and tearing into my guys again. Yes, they're easier to put down a second or third time, but they're wearing us down.

The problem is, I can't find any way to kill them after they're unconscious. Is there one? There's a "put them down" command (something like that), but it doesn't do anything. I tried looting the bodies, hoping that I could get leather that way - and kill them, in the process. But no, they're carrying nothing. And I can't even pick them up to haul them out of the immediate area.

So I built a corpse furnace. But I can't get that to work at all. I can't even assign a follower to that job - temporarily or as a permanent assignment - and I have no idea how it's supposed to work. Of course, you probably can't burn unconscious enemies, anyway. But I can't even pick up the unconscious dogs, so how do I get rid of them?

I've got a good 40 followers, so I'm surviving. The dogs die - eventually - with repeated attacks. But now I've got unconscious followers stuck where they've been knocked off cliffs. I can't get to them to heal them or pick them up. (Yeah, I'm going to try to reset character positions.)

Anyway, three questions:

1) How can I kill dogs after they've been knocked unconscious? (Actually, I'd like to tame one as a pet, but that's probably out of the question, huh? )

2) Is there anything you can do but reload a saved game when you've been beaten by a dog pack, but they won't leave the area?

3) Can a corpse furnace be made to work at all in this version of the game? How?


I'm still having lots of fun with this game. Problems like this are to be expected while the game is still in alpha. And so far, I've found a work-around for even the most desperate circumstances.

[Hatsune_Neko]

Anyway, three questions:

1) How can I kill dogs after they've been knocked unconscious? (Actually, I'd like to tame one as a pet, but that's probably out of the question, huh? )

There is a option called Put Down, but its not implemented yet. and taming is not added yet as well, though eventually you can get one, you have to steal an egg then raise it up. which is also a work in progress.

2) Is there anything you can do but reload a saved game when you've been beaten by a dog pack, but they won't leave the area?

Eventually, they supposed to leave you alone unless you're next to their nest. but importing into a new game is basically the only way for now until its fixed. also importing into a new game in Experimental breaks the navmesh. should always rebuild it once you finish loading your game, and after placing a lot of buildings or walls. Helps the Ai path around the new items better.

3) Can a corpse furnace be made to work at all in this version of the game? How?

Corpse furnace works in disposing of Human NPC bodies. the ability to carry animals was removed due some issues.

On a side note. like in real life, you can't outrun wildlife that are carnivores. ( most that is ) they are purpose built for speed and killing power. Even though the guards don't always work in cities, usually they will fight Dog and beakthing packs.

Even my high level character can sometimes have issues with Dog and beakthing packs. stats in the near 70's and they still have knocked me unconscious.

[WCG]

Corpse furnace works in disposing of Human NPC bodies.

Thanks. But does it work automatically? The structure seems to indicate that it requires one laborer, but I can't get anyone to take the job.

Of course, I'm not going to need it for anything if I can't burn up dogs.

On a side note. like in real life, you can't outrun wildlife that are carnivores.

Sure. In fact, earlier in the game, I was surprised when one of my characters, by herself, was able to outrun them. Well, she couldn't outrun them, exactly, but as long as she kept running, they weren't able to attack.

But it's a game, so realism isn't the primary purpose here. Besides, 40 people with swords probably wouldn't have any trouble at all with a dog pack in real life.

Thanks again for the reply.

[Hatsune_Neko]

all you need to get the furnace to work is to carry a dead body. ( has to be dead, not dying )
right click it to have the person carrying the dead body to drop it in.
don't even need to remove weapons or armour, it takes care of everything on the Dead NPC.

The being able to run nearly fast enough is more of a pathing error. its more prevalent with the larger animals due to having issues with their size and the pathing engine. so they tend to steer you around instead of over taking you then attacking.

[WCG]

all you need to get the furnace to work is to carry a dead body. ( has to be dead, not dying )
right click it to have the person carrying the dead body to drop it in.

OK, thanks. I assumed that they'd go get dead bodies automatically, if I assigned them to the furnace.

I don't have the furnace anymore, anyway. I tried importing the buildings into a new game. Yes, I saw the warning about it being buggy, and they weren't kidding! Wow! So I started my town over from scratch. (Actually, I'll be starting over yet again right now, since autohauling stopped working for me.)

[Hatsune_Neko]

no
that option is not added yet. not sure if it will be because you can loot them first and use the armour and weapons in your recycler when you're in a iron poor area. if you put them in the corpse furnace it destroys everything on them.

and yea, importing with buildings can be very buggy, usually the larger the base the bigger a chance of it happening, least from my experience.
its also one reason why i always stress that be prepared to lose your base a few times while kenshi develops. for some update or bug will break it eventually. which has happened to me a few times.

[kanzyman]

I encounter that large Dog group before, there are a nest and even after they move away from their nest to attack your people they will stay there and not move, I encountered them with my rookies group and needless to say only one survived out of 9, the rest died and I just couldn't be bothered to march my main group across the world map to help some new free recruits (got them after the nulti-squad update)

My main 20 man group have been with me since almost a year if not more and they are all baddass high levels so killing Dogs in never an issue to that group, very rarely any of the Dogs they kill get up.

[vpb]

I am having a similar problem with Beak Things. The problem is that they rarely die, but more and more keep coming so that I need to devote a growing number of fighters to beat them down over and over again. The squad can't do anything else because they are constantly having to beat down animals. In fact I am having to add fighters to the dedicated squad as the population of un-dead Beak Things grows.

I was hoping to find a solution but it looks like importing to a new game will be the only way. Maybe once I get a wall up the problem will be fixed. I see that they can die, because I have managed to kill several, new ones come faster than I can kill them, probably attracted by the smell. Probably the smell function needs to be disabled until there is some way to deal with it.

Also, why is there a separate corpse oven? Why not just use the re-cycling metal smelter to burn up corpses? You wouldn't even need to loot the metal to re-cycle it.

[vpb]

I did manage to capture a live beak thing.

[KySoto]

So i started a new game, i scout ahead via camera to check for bandits or dogs, oh theres dogs. ok well lets go run back in the gates... dog pack murders the entire town.

[HalbesEi]

My choice would be to enable the corpse funace to dispose of all unconcious enemies too. It's a bit ... "inhumane" but the way the game works at the moment this seems to be the easiest option to implement.

[Hatsune_Neko]

My choice would be to enable the corpse funace to dispose of all unconcious enemies too. It's a bit ... "inhumane" but the way the game works at the moment this seems to be the easiest option to implement.

that's been added.
i haven't tested it yet because i did a new game start.

[StarSkull]

Considering there are cannibals, it would be fitting to have them burned while still alive...inhumane yes, but sounds like a good idea to me.

[vpb]

Considering there are cannibals, it would be fitting to have them burned while still alive...inhumane yes, but sounds like a good idea to me.

Since you could kill unconscious bandits there is no reason to wait for them to die. The metal furnace and the corpse furnace should be combined, really. If you were cremating bodies with weapons on them the metal isn't going to be destroyed.

[Hatsune_Neko]

If you were cremating bodies with weapons on them the metal isn't going to be destroyed.

Technically you would be polluting the metal. making it worthless due to excess carbon and other unwanted material add in's. Smelting is a very exacting science.
Burning a body to reduce it to ash takes very high temperatures for long periods of time. it would become hot enough to melt metal.

game wise i like having the two separate.

[HalbesEi]

I'm more for the option to make one big furnace building, where the workers may dispose of corpses and also use weapons and armor to make raw iron.
(Think of it as workers automatically looting corpses and then making raw metal out of the stuff)

Using the metal furnace to melt things by hand could get very tedious very fast in the long run

Or an alternative could be to have an integrated "scavenger building" where the disposing of coprses and scavenging of raw materials from useless equipment (to metal, leather, fabric, etc) is automatically done by the workers.

There are basic gameplay issues to consider here, and too much micromangement isn't always be best way (although using the building would be optional).