My colonists are dying to wild animals over and over - any way to avoid this?

[CHOAM]

It's happened a couple of times now, where I get this annoying loop of death - a gatherer runs into a wild animal, and because apparently they're too stupid to know running away is an option, they die. The burial pit worker then goes over to the corpse, and gets attacked and dies, and then the person that replaces them in that job does the same, and so on. The only way to avoid it seems to be to clear the burial pit job slot, and to make sure your gatherers avoids certain areas; the problem is there seems to be no way to proactively deal with dangerous wild animals, as your guards seem fixed in place around their posts, and certain deposits are now just no-go areas. It's cost me an annoying number of colonists, too.

Am I missing something or is this just not very well thought out at the moment?

 

[DaBigJoe]

That sand worm/bug is really annoying. The only way I figured is constantly save/load. When it appears, use specialists to kill it. Game dev should really make better UI/UX for this kind of things.

 

[dessoul]

I normally send the hero guys through the city map. they are able to beat the animals. Not all of them, but you can clear some parts of the map and continue later, when they have healed up.
And you can mark the people/citizens and move them away. I discovered this accidently, when i marked my heroes to attack some bear and suddenly some villager, which was accidently marked as well attacked the bear, too. Seeing this i clicked on the villager and moved him away.

Edit: i just tested it, it is not possible any longer. I assume, the last patch has changed it.
So: you can only kill the animals with your heroes. As i said: i normally clear the map at some early point, then i do not have problems later.

 

[AndrewT]

Don't harvest resources anywhere near wild animals at the start.

As soon as you get your second specialist, send them in pairs to kill the animals, especially the boars. Don't over-commit there, take out one or two, retreat and heal, then go in again.

Don't touch the sandworm until you can send 3 or 4 specialists.

If a colonist dies near wild animals or the sandworm, disable the burial pit by removing its staff, otherwise you will lose your entire colony one by one trying to retrieve the bodies.

 

[dessoul]

Its a bit strange, but i just discovered again, that in case of fighting, you can move your settlers! The same as before: somehow i had some settler in my team, when i was going to clear the city-map from animals. And now i could move him! Before that, i could not do that. But now, as they fight, i am able to click on him/her and tell where to go. So, the moment your settlers are attacked by whatever, you pause it, zoom there and tell the settlers to go the hell away from this area. Then make sure, that no setters is going there again by chancelling harvesting orders or whatever until you have cleared it with heroes.

Edit: And where or how can i find "sandworms"?

 

[AndrewT]

Edit: And where or how can i find "sandworms"?

They appear randomly, usually about 1/3 or 1/2 way across the map. You only find them by someone dying.

 

[matti_ifs]

You can also press L or right thumb-stick to show friendly/neutral/hostile unit icons on top of them to help pinpoint dangerous areas.

 

[King Doom]

they added the L toggle purely for sandworms. It says a lot about the developers.

 

[matti_ifs]

We added the highlight icons and improved the overall animal visibility (from black Rat Beetles to copper-colored) to help people spot all hostiles easier in wooded areas and in high grass, as the alternative would have required reducing the plant coverage etc.