SIGNIFICANT QOL changes to ranching

[JohnnyJohn]

Ranching as-is leaves a lot to be desired. For the sake of brevity, I'll spare you the long-winded rant about it and get to the point.

I have three main propositions for ranching: The first being making it non-secret to some extent, so that some knowledge of it's mechanics can be more easily obtained. That, and you can experiment on it with a local server.

The second is vastly improving the readability of the status of the chickens. For example, the ranch could spawn with a couple of bio-scanner tools that could tell what the health, hunger, and mutation stats are for the particular chicken you use it on. That way, you have a better understanding of whether or not what you're doing is working, and how far along you are at getting a particular sub-species of chicken.

The third is generally accelerating everything in the ranching system. Hens laying, chicks growing up, feed being eaten, death by old age, mutations, etc. There's just not much time in one round to wait around.

All in all, I intend for this to make ranching a more comfortable experience that is WAY less frustrating than it currently is.

[UrsulaMejor]

1) Chickens are non-secret content. They are closed source, but nothing about their mechanics is forbidden to be put on the wiki. I would both encourage and appreciate if people took the time to fill out the wiki with their testing, speculation, etc. My goal with this is to replicate some of the most fun I had at ss13 back when I started playing, which was the efforts to which players would collaborate to hypothesize and test how the game works and sharing their results on forums and the wiki.

2) Short answer: No.

The long answer here is that not every mutation has a clearly defined set of stats that could easily be standardized for such a tool. Health can easily be ascertained already with a regular medical scanner. Happiness can be checked by petting the chicken a few times and seeing if it's happy. Hunger can be ascertained by feeding the chicken and seeing if it eats. Just like a real animal.

3) Short answer: No

Long answer here is that the system is already incredibly fast. It's hard to tell sometimes, especially when you have a ton of chickens and don't track individual ones, but trust me: 99% of chickens can have their mutation conditions met *before the chicken even grows up* if you know a few simple techniques which I am happily awaiting someone putting on the wiki after in-game testing and discovery.

I know that these aren't the answers you were hoping for, but I hope you understand that the obfuscation of the systems aren't meant to frustrate you. They're meant to try to convince you to collaborate with other ranchers and talk about how you do things together.

[JohnnyJohn]

GASP! Talking to others?? My one weakness!!!!!!!

[Glamurio]

1) Chickens are non-secret content. They are closed source, but nothing about their mechanics is forbidden to be put on the wiki. I would both encourage and appreciate if people took the time to fill out the wiki with their testing, speculation, etc. My goal with this is to replicate some of the most fun I had at ss13 back when I started playing, which was the efforts to which players would collaborate to hypothesize and test how the game works and sharing their results on forums and the wiki.

Not commenting on the general thread statements, but this particular statement is news to me, and I assume many others. The general understanding is that chickens are secret content and a lot of the in-depth mechanics about it aren't allowed to be publicly shared, I know there's Google Docs that contain much more in-depth information that's not on the wiki precisely *because* I think most people don't think we're allowed to share all information on the wiki. It's not made very clear that it's "non-secret closed source", because it's not very congruent with literally any other closed source part of the game, which typically is not allowed to be publicly shared, and particularly made more confusing because things like Space Chicken and Time Chicken are listed as Secret on said wiki.

Additionally, Wikis are typically meant to represent "as-is" information, it's not very helpful for new players picking up ranching if there's mechanics that "may or may not actually be true" listed on the wikipedia as possibly true.

[Cal]

Emily has stated several times that the code is secret so people don't outright copy it, but the mechanics are OK to discuss. I've stated this before as well.

Not sure how to make it more obvious.  Maybe a header on the wiki.

[JOELED]

Emily has stated several times that the code is secret so people don't outright copy it, but the mechanics are OK to discuss. I've stated this before as well.

Not sure how to make it more obvious.  Maybe a header on the wiki.

wiki header could be good, been awhile since i played so culture around it could have shifted but i know when i tried to do rancher it felt really isolating and therefore boring to me because a lot of people wouldn't talk to me about it due to it being "secret content" and i didn't have a way at the time to disprove them even though I knew it wasn't true. having it on the page to point at would be nice for people to defend themselves, at least

[JORJ949]

The only secret content regarding chickens is how to get the space and time chickens, though it being in the "secret" submodule makes people think it is inherently secret, although the reverse is known to not apply e.g. with old azons

[freedo5]

The third is generally accelerating everything in the ranching system. Hens laying, chicks growing up, feed being eaten, death by old age, mutations, etc. There's just not much time in one round to wait around.

I think the timing is actually pretty good for the various eggs, the most time consuming thing i found is when i get unlucky and my eggs decide to hatch four roosters in a row, but apart from that if you compare the time you need with the power of the eggs i'd say it's a good trade.

[cheekybrdy]

Ranching seems unbalanced due to its high skill floor, but the adjustments needed to change that would be devastating for the ceiling. You can always learn how to nerd feeding intervals and ageinium, but if it was possible to decrease the skill floor without raising the ceiling I'd be all for it. People don't really sabotage pens or steal eggs which would harm ranchers if people did them but seeing as they don't there's control mechanisms that are in store at the moment if they become a problem. I would honestly agree with this in regards to classic if the pop going up reduced the average round length again. Back when the average round times are short 30-45 it was unplayable.

Only real general complaint with current balancing is rooster RNG, I'd really like at least something that tells you a egg's gender prehatch, or tells you a chick's. You can plan around rooster RNG and still get fucked by it. Either that or a optimised hatch order RNG wise considering what's also in the pen on classic if the pop goes up again. Ranching is on monkestation so code protection isn't the current reason from what I've heard, more dev choice iirc?

[Kotlol]

In my opinion there is nothing wrong with "automation" tools and making it easier.

The best balance in SS13 is "Doing it automatic = fast, clean, no risk, no real reward, jobs done."
vs "You painstakenly work on it every lil detail to get the best effects."

I see this with Botany and Cooking the most as well as Chemistry.

You got the easy things to do, but the harder things... is better.

Rancher is one of the least engaging and too focussed jobs in the game.
You gotta from the moment you start.. work towards getting the chickens you want. There is no in between.

You want raptors? IMMIDENTLY START WORKING TOWARDS IT!

There is no manipulating the eggs with injections kinda mechanics... just feed.. make em happy.... feed... wait.
And while botany has waiting too. There are ways to work around it so you don't have to wait as much.

[Lord_earthfire]

A thing that gates ranchibg is botany. You need to be a fairly good botanist to get chickens fast enough.

Ranching is on monkestation so code protection isn't the current reason from what I've heard, more dev choice iirc?

It's working differently there and i dunno if they are compareable code-wise

but trust me: 99% of chickens can have their mutation conditions met *before the chicken even grows up* if you know a few simple techniques which I am happily awaiting someone putting on the wiki after in-game testing and discovery.

I mean most of the stuff needed for quick mutations is already on the wiki. Now that first thing is news to me: i consistently hit the requirements for a mutation after the first egg cycle. But i think i know how to reach that given the information it is possible.

But with that information, ~20 - 25min T3 chickens should be fairly consistently possible.

[JOELED]

Ranching is on monkestation so code protection isn't the current reason from what I've heard, more dev choice iirc?

It's working differently there and i dunno if they are compareable code-wise

its not comparable, monke had to completely recode it. the licenses arent compatible, even if it wasnt hidden in the secret submodule they couldnt just take the code

[JohnnyJohn]

Ranching seems unbalanced due to its high skill floor, but the adjustments needed to change that would be devastating for the ceiling. You can always learn how to nerd feeding intervals and ageinium, but if it was possible to decrease the skill floor without raising the ceiling I'd be all for it. People don't really sabotage pens or steal eggs which would harm ranchers if people did them but seeing as they don't there's control mechanisms that are in store at the moment if they become a problem. I would honestly agree with this in regards to classic if the pop going up reduced the average round length again. Back when the average round times are short 30-45 it was unplayable.

Only real general complaint with current balancing is rooster RNG, I'd really like at least something that tells you a egg's gender prehatch, or tells you a chick's. You can plan around rooster RNG and still get fucked by it. Either that or a optimised hatch order RNG wise considering what's also in the pen on classic if the pop goes up again. Ranching is on monkestation so code protection isn't the current reason from what I've heard, more dev choice iirc?

The problem is that I cannot identify feeding intervals because I can't examine them on a private server (example of why I hate it being secret) and a rancher just cannot access the means to make ageinium. That, and the RNG does hurt

[cheekybrdy]

One thing I do want to add here is the ranch techniques are documented more in depth out of wiki, in a similar relationship to toxins, people want to keep a bit of the knowledge for themselves in the same way and for the same reasons. I will say I have wanted to add more things to the wiki (which drugs are better in a table) but because of how ranch code is there's no way to experiment this in its current form. (I've still documented the elechick and added the guide image to the wiki itself) There's also no way to confirm and verify information that a contributor makes which is really bad quality control and means that uncertainties would be presented to learning players. I really think seeing that ranching is HALF A DECADE OLD now that "wiki isn't documented enough" is really a good way to look at it anymore.

[Lord_earthfire]

I really think seeing that ranching is HALF A DECADE OLD now that "wiki isn't documented enough" is really a good way to look at it anymore.

The thing is: it is not not documented enough.

Really, e.g. the wiki has all the stuff you need to get through most evolutions in there. Like the paragraph "Chicken Breeds" is more or less most information you need to get all the feed-based mutations.

I've had a ton of beginner ranchers working besides me and the problem is: beginner ranchers all do the very same mistakes.

- They lay out incompatible feed before supplying the real stuff (And the wiki tells you not to do that)
- They are not good at botany (that's just a hard requirement for rancher)
- They do not handfeed chickens (the wiki tells you that it makes it faster to get higher tier chickens)
- They make way too many low tier chickens (although that is just a personal opinion)

The thing is simple: ranching is hard on the execution for new players. Because most of its difficulty comes from optimization. The wiki has most information you need, you just need to put all pieces into place. The only thing missing hard numbers and specific methods for T3 chickens (e.g. volthens, cluwnes or dragons). But they are theoretically not needed.

The most hard check for ranchers is botany, flat out. If you can do botany, you can do ranching. If you can't do botany, your ranching results get delayed hard. There is a reason why many good ranchers are also very good botanists.

My personal take: ranching going open won't change much. The nerds will maybe just go "huh, so you need 2 feeds of lizard tails for a stone chicken to get cockatrices instead of the 6-7 for most other chickens" (yes, from my testing it is in fact significant less feeds for cockatrices) and "huh, so i need to shove the henk this exact amount of times for it to lay cluwne eggs instead of going by feeling". At worst, people will optimize it on private servers, which i think should -not- be encouraged.