Calling all Trappers. Help meh.

[Bert Preast]

Usually I play as a hunter and enjoy nature's bounty.  This time however; I have been reincarnated as a Reemi trapper, and things are a bit of a struggle.  I have a decent fishing skill and have been living mostly from that, as my two tile trap fence cunningly laid across an isthmus between two large lakes has provided a grand total of one reindeer.  She appeared in the first trap I made, the very next day after I made it.  I was expecting great things, but now my morale is crushed.  Three months gone, and the smokehouse I built remains tragically empty.

My trap fence goes from lake to lake, with an average of six fences/trees between pit traps.  Is that about right, or do I need more traps?

How often should I check the traps?  I have been checking them daily, when I wake up.

How often should I reset the traps?  I've been doing this only about once a month, do I need to do it weekly or even daily?

My baits are turnips or spoiled boar.  The boar cuts are not processed; and I alternate turnip/meat, mostly because I am on the part of the game course where you have to kill a bear (Great Man of the Forest).  If I get a bear I will probably replace the boar cuts with turnips.

Perhaps I am living too close to my trap fence?  I have built a cabin one wilderness tile away, should I move?

My trapping skill is 92% and I do get lots of birds in my snares and light levers around my cabin, and I got a glutton and a lynx in my small deadfalls.  But apart from that first reindeer, my trap fence gets nothing.  Am I missing something?

[JP_Finn]

When Trapping:

I generally make 2-4 wilderness tiles long trap fences. Pit every 8-12 zoomed-in tiles. 2 turnip baits, 1 meat. Every 30 or so tiles I set paw-board on a small clearing along the fence. Also some light levers and loop snares along the way ( so hares won't eat all the pit trap baits)

I also rarely have the trap line closer than 15-20 wilderness tiles from a cabin. Often days walk away.
Some lines I do have a small kota (4x4, 2x2 interior) along the way. (usually only characters that go njerpez killing does this, with the otherwise near useless ragged hides) Usually ones that are too far to ski to and from in a day (or summer walk 2-3 days) when the temperatures drop extreme low.

I do check every 2-5 days, depending if I have 2, 3, or 4 trap lines. Dot some LLT/loop/paw board points to shore lines (ski or paddle)
Usually by 3rd winter I'd be sitting on 3-4k cuts of elk and 2k+ reindeer, usually some 1-2k bear too. But I often go donation runs to nearby villages, or occasionally trade preserved cuts for grains and vegetables.

[Bert Preast]

Hmm, could be that I am living too close to the trap fence, then?  I thought I would live close to it as in previous games when I have been away from a cabin for a long time, when I return the traps are always as I left them.  So I assumed that the game is not simulating wildlife in an area where the player isn't.

How often do you reset your traps?

[Plotinus]

I often have a trap fence around my field, to capture any animals who comes to steal my crops. this is often nearish to my home. i think there's a lot of randomness and I don't know how much distance helps.

the game does simulate the wildlife in real time in areas where you're not, but it depends how far away you are -- if you're in kaumo then the game isn't keeping track of what the birds in driik are doing. but when you enter a tile it makes up backstory for what happened in that tile and lays the tracks, and animals are generated at random in the area around where you are. you can actually generate quite a bit of animals by walking back and forth in an area -- whenever i get that lost farm animal quest i always encounter an extraordinary amount of wildlife because of how many times i'm wandering around in the area, back and forth.

i'm not sure how wide this radius around you is that the game keeps track of. I know that the the 9 world-map tiles centered around you are always loaded fully when you're zoomed in and the real time movements of the animals are tracked very carefully, because at any moment you could need the tracks they're leaving. Outside of that, when you're on the wilderness map you can sometimes see animals moving around, if you're at a high enough elevation and there aren't too many trees in the way (overlooking a mire), so i reckon when you're zoomed out there's at least 10 tiles or so around you where the game is tracking what animals are in which tile.

If you're too close to the traps it can scare animals away, but this can also work in your favour -- if the animal is between you and trap fence, you can go towards it and it'll run into the fence.

I think you're just having some bad luck Bert.


I reset some of my traps everytime i visit them because it trains the trapping skill, and because you can't know if you got a good roll or a bad roll last time, so at least if i'm resetting it a lot then sometimes i'll have good rolls. I put a raw meat cut and some vegetable (usually a turnip) and a berry on each one. Bears eat berries and meat.

[Plotinus]

It's Harvest month for Jerkko and the barley and rye is getting ready for harvest. The traps hadn't seen much activity throughout the year but now every elk and reindeer in the entire region has come to visit my traps. It seems they're really attracted to the ripe crops. 13 of them in the span of a month. Every day I went to harvest any new crops, and it feltl ike half the days there'd be another elk, and I'd have to take care of it and get everything smoking, then go back and try to harvest some more, keep up with the tanning. I was wanting to go visit a village to try to pick up a new quest but I just couldn't manage to find the time for about 45 days since my last quest.

Finally I got the last of the harvest in and the traps have quieted down and I managed to pick up a quest -- lost reindeer in the forest cover. I've triggered all my traps so that I don't catch anything. I don't want to anger the spirits (they get really mad if you let an animal die and then rot in a trap). Well, I'm looking for it, but I have to keep nipping home to relight the stove.

This is how this play session went, excerpts from msglog.txt

Code: [Select]

(000000):s7j6:[@]{07180214}      | the forest reindeer doe sighs once, then stays laying dead still. <-- 28 July
(000000):18jl:[@]{07180214}      | the bull elk sighs once, then stays laying dead still.            <-- 1 August
(000000):48jj:[@]{07170215}      | the forest reindeer stag sighs once, then stays laying dead still. <-- 4 August
(000000):c8j8:[@]{07180214}      | the bull elk sighs once, then stays laying dead still. <-- 12 August
(000000):c8jh:[@]{07120210}      | the hazel grouse sighs once, then stays laying dead still.
(000000):e8jj:[@]{07170214}      | the elk sighs once, then stays laying dead still. <-- 14 August
(000000):g8j1:[@]{07190215}      | the forest reindeer doe sighs once, then stays laying dead still. <-- 17 August
(000000):g8jb:[@]{07120210}      | the black grouse sighs once, then stays laying dead still.
(000000):i8j9:[@]{07180214}      | the elk sighs once, then stays laying dead still. <-- 19 August
(000000):k8jf:[@]{07120210}      | the hare sighs once, then stays laying dead still.
(000000):m8ja:[@]{07180214}      | the forest reindeer doe sighs once, then stays laying dead still. <-- 23 August
(000000):29j0:[@]{07180214}      | the forest reindeer doe sighs once, then stays laying dead still. <-- 2 September
(000000):49jf:[@]{07170215}      | the bull elk sighs once, then stays laying dead still. <-- 4 September
(000000):69j2:[@]{07170214}      | the forest reindeer doe sighs once, then stays laying dead still. <-- 6 September
(000000):89jd:[@]{07170214}      | the elk sighs once, then stays laying dead still. <-- 8 September
(000000):a9jh:[@]{07170214}      | the elk sighs once, then stays laying dead still. <-- 10 September
(000000):h9j8:[@]{07120210}      | the arctic fox sighs once, then stays laying dead still.
(000000):l9jc:[@]{07170214}      | the wolf sighs once, then stays laying dead still. <--  21 September

With most characters I do the field on a tile that is already mostly clear -- half of a ford, or a lichenous pine forest or a hill, and then i put the trap fence in a square around the edge of that tile. And that works pretty well. With this character I did a variation -- I made the trap fence along the edge of a pine mire, the trap fence spans about 6 worldmap tiles, and i planted the field along the edge of the forest, near the fence.



Anyway, I think this is also mostly just luck, in the opposite direction. But I think the crops help, too.

[Plotinus]

Uploaded some screenshots from some of my characters trap fences, and showing where they are relative to their home.

https://imgur.com/a/8kEblpo

[Bert Preast]

Very helpful, thank you.

[McKwack]

Uploaded some screenshots from some of my characters trap fences, and showing where they are relative to their home.

https://imgur.com/a/8kEblpo

n00b question pl0x: building such a long fence would require one to chop down as many young trees as needed to craft the necessary wooden stakes. Won't the spirits be angry with you for falling down so many trees? Or simply try to appease them with daily sacrifices?

[Plotinus]

Uploaded some screenshots from some of my characters trap fences, and showing where they are relative to their home.

https://imgur.com/a/8kEblpo

n00b question pl0x: building such a long fence would require one to chop down as many young trees as needed to craft the necessary wooden stakes. Won't the spirits be angry with you for falling down so many trees? Or simply try to appease them with daily sacrifices?

When I have raw meat, I sacrifice one per day. And when I do fishing, then I sacrifice one raw roach or perch per day. But if I don't have any fresh meat and haven't gone fishing recently enough to have raw fish, then I don't usually sacrifice anything. I cut down the trees that are next to the trap fence so i can walk in a straight line along it. But I use all the trees that I cut down: the big trunks are for my house, the slender trunks  are for the trap fence.

I know the spirits don't like it if you waste things, and I do remember some old game lore about them not liking it if you cut down lots of trees  -- there used to be a ritual you could do to ask the tree's spirit to the leave the tree before chopping it down, but that was before the ritual system was revamped. I don't know if it's still in effect. You'll know if the spirits are mad, instead of "you feel peace with your surroundings" in the middle of the night, you'll get a message about being afraid. I usually get that when I've forgotten to check my traps and discover a decaying bear or rotten elk or something, an animal that has lost its life and not fed me or given me clothing. Then I sacrifice everyday until things are better again.

[JP_Finn]

I have a long standing custom recipe to rip boards into stakes. Less hauling logs around, as my trapping grounds are usually couple days walk from the cabin/homestead.

[JP_Finn]

Oh, too close to trap fence isn’t a thing either. I got couple traps loosely around the fenced of home yard, get lot of animal activity in them.