by ThorleifCleaver » Sun Aug 07, 2022 11:50 pm
I have no idea if Snail maps out spawn points, or if he or anyone else ever came to the same conclusion about said points that I did. I might be very wrong. At any rate, I don't bot much save for farm-related tedium, but if I had to guess, I'd say their approach is simply to script a bot to sail around, avoid orca, and ding them when they spot a whale. Unless the devs have something unique planned, that same method would still work fine, even if whales become persistent objects. You could certainly hunt them very early in the world--really, any competent faction should be able to cobble together a crap knarr after three days of play. Like I say, the limiting factors are really just tarsticks and patience.
As for actually fighting whales (cachalots, not orca--different approach), the cheesing is sort of similar, as you say. I can't speak to exact numbers, but if you really want to kill one early you'd best use a boar spear for the penetration. You'd need enough strength, as I said, to do damage, and you'd just manage your openings while getting it to flee damage levels. It would take a while, but no-lifers love that kind of thing. At that point, you can do what Snail and others suggest, which is de/reaggro, or you could be lazy and let it swim off, then follow it and let it bleed to death, same as any other critter you're too lazy to kill. Thing is, unless you are using some really cheap tactics, you need to be able to at least manage the basic cheese fight.
Players also exploit a few other oddities in the whale mechanics, namely its inability to cross shallow water, meaning the water tiles you can wade in. The map gen occasionally creates little cul-de-sacs of deep water surrounded by shallow, sometimes as small as a single tile. This, I suppose, is the analogue of a cheese method boat hunters use: finding a cul-de-sac of land, luring a critter to it, and blocking it off before fighting. I've never done this and find it a bit idiotic. But, because the whale is a very large object, it can easily get wedged. Some find it helpful. There are far better ways, though.
Don't fight from a boat, at least until you get to titan levels. Then, you can, but you need to get OUT of your knarr. See, you wouldn't even consider this until your CON is to a level that you can tread water almost indefinitely. That way, you can fight and only enter your boat when you need to drink. You also need skills, melee or unarmed, enough to manage the openings in a standup fight, which is a tall order, though I bet the shield up fix will make that more attractive to the tryhard solo players. At any rate, while fights don't have to be to 40k damage. Like ANY fight, they just have to be to a flee threshold, which varies. And like I said, my experience is that mammoth open you up much faster. Others may have different experiences, but I found standup solo mammoth fights very challenging even in the 3-4k stat range and with melee in the 1.5k range, effective. I could at that point more or less stand on shore and duke it out with the whale, only moving occasionally.
Also, why cheese them early? In W13, cachalot meat made the best AGI and STR food, with troll a close though hardly farmable second for AGI2. A proper autumn steak could give over 1k AGI2 event points. That is very relevant when your stats are massive, but frankly it seems kind of a waste of time in the early game, what with easier, easily spammable options available. Sure, the whale scrimshaw and blowholes are great lp and the whaler's jacket is awesome armor, but not so much that you need them in the first week. You can make thousands of pork meat pies and DDDs for STR2 and AGI2 easier than you can hunt a whale. Save it for when it matters.