animal domestication/husbandry

[kimya]

while talking on irc leonon had a great idea about animal husbandry and domestication.

first of all you'd have to make an animal feel comfortable living with you (husbandry). it wouldnt despawn, for example. after that you can domesticate it and "work out" different traits, while you have to make tradeoffs. do you want cows (for example) to mainly give milk or meat? high quality or large amount of milk? same with meat. how strong is the cow against diseases?
you could work that out trhough breeding generation after generation, and of course type and quality of food, water, etc.

another example with horses, which will hopefully be implemented soon
do you want a strong horse (pulling carts, carrying stuff, armour) or a fast horse (fast riding) and again, diseases.

what do you think? quite complex, but it could also be easy in the beginning. mind you, iron/wrought/steel is very complex aswell...

[Neyvn]

I would love the ability to tame sheep mainly.
Wool every week or something constantly would be nice,...

[Chakravanti]

Yeah Animal husbandry should definately be more intricate than just breeding for quality numbers. Another thought is that they should eat grass, as in..like plow. If they run out of grass and you don't change their pens which you can build from regular fences then they will die.

This gives purpose to two (currently) pointless features in the game: stick fence & tile reversion.

Same could apply to lambs, and of course, chickens would have some kind of dispensary to be stocked with seeds (of any kind) that will affect the breeding quality and development of chickens within a certain standard square area.

This will make numbers shut up about his flax and provide rollover slider value from other nature-related tasks.

[Hamel]

Yeah Animal husbandry should definately be more intricate than just breeding for quality numbers. Another thought is that they should eat grass, as in..like plow. If they run out of grass and you don't change their pens which you can build from regular fences then they will die.

I'd prefer if they left sparse-grass squares, instead, which would turn back into normal grass squares eventually. And you should be able to feed larger domesticated animals straw and oats, too. Of course they'd need water as well.

[Chakravanti]

Yeah Animal husbandry should definately be more intricate than just breeding for quality numbers. Another thought is that they should eat grass, as in..like plow. If they run out of grass and you don't change their pens which you can build from regular fences then they will die.

I'd prefer if they left sparse-grass squares, instead, which would turn back into normal grass squares eventually. And you should be able to feed larger domesticated animals straw and oats, too. Of course they'd need water as well.

True...this would force rotation instead of jst letting people replant

[kobnach]

Yeah Animal husbandry should definately be more intricate than just breeding for quality numbers. Another thought is that they should eat grass, as in..like plow. If they run out of grass and you don't change their pens which you can build from regular fences then they will die.

I'd prefer if they left sparse-grass squares, instead, which would turn back into normal grass squares eventually. And you should be able to feed larger domesticated animals straw and oats, too. Of course they'd need water as well.

Let's avoid having another skill usable only by those unemployed and/or able to play from school/work. Let's also avoid creating one that's inconsistent with RL vacations. In other words, if one has e.g. some cows, one shouldn't need to log on every single day to maintain them. One also shouldn't have to match one's playing time to yet another small window - e.g. do x, wait at least 6 hours of game up time (18 game hr) and no more than 8 (24 game hr) and then do Y. Silk and steel are luxury goods, so may merit being accessible only to no-RL gamers and large groups spread across many time zones; livestock should be as common as wheat.

[Potjeh]

Hmm, with sufficient number of grass tiles you could be sure your cows will have food. Make it possible to build dew ponds for cattle, and they can have water too. So, livestock could be kept alive without any involvement, but it'd take a lot of space. On the other hand, someone tending his livestock daily could keep a much larger number of animals on the same land area, because he would feed them and give them water in addition to what the land is producing. The idea here is that you'll be much more land-efficient if you take regular care of your livestock, but you can raise a small number of animals effortlessly if you don't want to bother.