Animal Transport crates that can be loaded on large ships please

[SmeJack 5,801]

I'm thinking +1 only if restricted to passive creatures.

[Stik 453]

A big problem with transporting them across servers.  They aren't items, they are a type of npc, and there are animal caps on each server.  Transporting them across servers would really mess up the code.

The thing with this idea would likely turn animals into an 'item' so to speak. Or at least I'd imagine it would. 

[Ryshad 26]

The thing with this idea would likely turn animals into an 'item' so to speak. Or at least I'd imagine it would. 

 

I think Vroomfondel's point wasn't that they need to BE items; the important part is that they AREN'T items. There are no caps on item count, so if you want to move 10k of something from server A to server B, that's fine. The end result is the same as it would be if you created 10k of that item on server B.

 

Animals are different - they have a server cap on numbers with mechanisms to prevent you creating more when the limit is hit. If you allow cross server transport, how does the server deal with someone bringing in 4 horses when the creature cap is currently hit? Kill the 4 imports? Kill 4 existing animals? Allow the horses to remain, effectively making the creature count 104 out of 100 (100 is clearly not the actual limit, just an example)?

 

If the crate did convert the animals into items the same questions apply, but when you try to unload the animals rather than when you enter the server. How frustrating would it be to try and unload your horses on the new server only to see "Server is full, please try again later" (or a thematic equivalent of that). Or worse still, you unload the horse and it keels over dead >.<

 

One solution could be to show a message, before you leave your current server, that says something like "the open ocean is rough, the animals in the hold would not survive the journey" and any loaded animals die if you cross servers. It would mean being VERY careful about sailing near server borders with live cargo, but would prevent people migrating animals and messing with spawn caps.

[Stik 453]

 

I don't know a whole lot more than basic programming, but wouldn't the ideal fix be to increase animal aging speed by a value with a curve that goes up the more animals they have over the aggressive / domestic creature cap per server.

Then, the next thing that you'd probably want to do is limit the amount of these filled 'animal crates' that can be moved across a server border to SOMETHING, so that you at least have a little bit of control of animal population spikes if, for example, someone with control over a large group of players told all of them to sail their extra animals to whichever neighboring server to spike their animal count briefly. I know believe there used to be a programmed check for what items you could transport when server switching (Specifically portal to another server from GV to Indy ) so if they're able to implement something like that, then I think limited the NUMBER of items wouldn't be atrociously hard, either.

I believe the animal cap numbers have never been a hard cap, anyways - and you wouldn't have spawn issues because of too many animals leaving any given server, either, which we've learned from Indy when it's animal cap was at least once adjusted. Spawns don't spike, it will gradually raise until it meets the normal animal limit.

Yes, of course this suggestion means more people are going to lose animals to old age, but I mean, I think a lot of us don't ever have to worry too much about old age with it being in its current stage - and 'care for' fixes a lot of that issue anyways.

Edit: And require whatever enclosure they need to be in hard to make.

Edited November 13, 2015 by Stik

[Chiqa 742]

+1 I would actually use my  Knarr for something other than storage.

[Vroomfondel 1,128]

For more proof that animals are NPCs and not items, consider this.  They move about on their own, and you fight them.  When you fight them with LT or MS enchants on the weapon, you gain health or gain some skill (usually weaponless fighting).  The only other thing that does this are guards, which you readily accept as NPCs.  And who said NPCs have to be human?

Edited November 15, 2015 by Vroomfondel