Crows on the beach farm

[Squigglyruth]

Am I right that crows are less likely to eat unprotected crops on the beach farm because it has more tiles?

I'm working from the answer given to this post.

I have more than 64 crops, so I think I get 4 crows.

Imagine I plant 16-40 crops in the tillable area of the beach farm, unprotected by a scarecrow (because I am short of time that day). This is egg festival day year 1, and there are reasons, mostly to do with lack of fibre. Which is down to lack of planning ahead :-)

My brain is screaming at me to protect my crops, but that would involve losing large amounts of time harvesting fibre in the forest. I won't have the time to spare. It's efficient for the future if I plant speed-gro strawberries now in the tillable area, arranged around imaginary quality sprinklers...

So, I have calculated the odds of a crow attack the next morning, if I don't protect the new crops.

I think that for 16 crops unprotected on the beach farm, the odds are 0.3*(16/4628) that each crow will successfully attack a first square, which is about 1 in 1000. If it is unsuccessful, it will try up to 9 more squares, so let's assume each crow has a roughly 1/100 chance to eat a crop each day...

Before I did the calculation, I was thinking I would risk it for up to a 50% chance, but it turns out it is more like 4%! Even at 40 unprotected crops, I think it's about 10%, which seems worth the risk for one day...

I guess I am adjusting my expectations, because I normally play on farms with much smaller numbers of tiles. There *is* a risk - I am putting valulable speed-gro on those unprotected strawberries - but it isn't huge. Tomorrow is a rainy day...

 

[Cptldsilver]

Your calculations are off here. There is a 30% chance 1 crow will attempt to eat a crop. If they roll eat then they look at 10 TILLED tiles on your farm (not total tiles). There are some tilled tiles that are not eligible for crows (seeds not grown yet, wild seeds, crops within a scarecrow radius). So its possible to reduce your chances this way but not very efficient.

 

[BlaDe]

Do note that if a tile within range of the scarecrow is selected, the crow stops searching.

 

[Squigglyruth]

Your calculations are off here. There is a 30% chance 1 crow will attempt to eat a crop. If they roll eat then they look at 10 TILLED tiles on your farm (not total tiles). There are some tilled tiles that are not eligible for crows (seeds not grown yet, wild seeds, crops within a scarecrow radius). So its possible to reduce your chances this way but not very efficient.

That would make a definite difference. The post I found just said tiles, and I can't find any other specific information about the mechanism. Can you link me to your source?

Do note that if a tile within range of the scarecrow is selected, the crow stops searching.

That would make a very big difference, since I have 248 crops protected by a scarecrow. Again, the info I found didn't say that - it said the code stops if a crop gets eaten.

Assuming both those corrections to the mechanism are true, then the beach farm would not make a difference to the odds. But they would only be a bit more than in my initial calculation. Each of the four crows will either pick one of the 16 unprotected crops, or pick a protected crop and stop. So the odds are 4*0.3*16/264 = 7%. Still not a huge risk, unless I have still have faulty info or have calculated wrong?

 

[imnvs]

Yeah, the size of the farm doesn't effect this... but size of tilled area. I mean, if you tilled a bunch of stuff just to leave it tilled to serve as a distraction for the crows, you would have an effect on the chances that they eat your unprotected crops, sure.

Also, I think your odds are still off, but I'm tired and my math may be off too, but I am pretty sure you need to start from the chance to not eat. So, 7/10 the crow won't trigger, and 4 crows. This means you take the chances of one not triggering, and multiply it by the chances that the next doesn't, and the next and the next... and that's the chance that none of them will trigger. That is (7/10)^4 to verify the crows chances to not trigger at all which is 24%... then subtract that from 100% to find the chances that at least 1 crow will trigger, so 76%. Then you multiply this by the chances that they will pick an unprotected crop, which you were correct is 16/264. Multiplying that by .76 gets you 4.06%.

 

[Squigglyruth]

Also, I think your odds are still off, but I'm tired and my math may be off too, but I am pretty sure you need to start from the chance to not eat. So, 7/10 the crow won't trigger, and 4 crows. This means you take the chances of one not triggering, and multiply it by the chances that the next doesn't, and the next and the next... and that's the chance that none of them will trigger. That is (7/10)^4 to verify the crows chances to not trigger at all which is 24%... then subtract that from 100% to find the chances that at least 1 crow will trigger, so 76%. Then you multiply this by the chances that they will pick an unprotected crop, which you were correct is 16/264. Multiplying that by .76 gets you 4.06%.

I think that's wrong. If you do it that way, you don't include cases where more than one crow triggers but the first chooses the wrong crop. But I am tired too...

EDIT: If I start from the chance to not eat, I would calculate 1-(0.3*16/264) for each run of the algorithm. That gives 0.98. Assuming 4 crows, 0.98^4 = 0.93, so that method still gives a 7% chance.

 

[BlaDe]

I wrote the bulk of the crows section on the wiki, and my source is the game code. I double checked the code (Farm::addCrows), and found I needed to make an adjustment to the wiki.

The tiles that the random tile is pulled from is all tilled spots (regardless of there being a crop in it or not), all tree tiles, all grass tiles, and all flooring tiles.

A crop that is still seeds is treated the same as no crop for the purposes of tile selection (i.e. as one of the 10 attempts)

 

[Squigglyruth]

I wrote the bulk of the crows section on the wiki, and my source is the game code. I double checked the code (Farm::addCrows), and found I needed to make an adjustment to the wiki.

The tiles that the random tile is pulled from is all tilled spots (regardless of there being a crop in it or not), all tree tiles, all grass tiles, and all flooring tiles.

A crop that is still seeds is treated the same as no crop for the purposes of tile selection (i.e. as one of the 10 attempts)

Thank you, that's interesting to know! I have a lot of grass right now, and a fair number of trees. Do tree seeds and saplings count as tree tiles?

 

[imnvs]

The tiles that the random tile is pulled from is all tilled spots (regardless of there being a crop in it or not), all tree tiles, all grass tiles, and all flooring tiles.

Hold up... so just having a huge field of grass and lots of flooring for pathways and such will reduce the chances of a crow picking a viable crop for it to eat? That seems... a bit wacky.

 

[Squigglyruth]

Hold up... so just having a huge field of grass and lots of flooring for pathways and such will reduce the chances of a crow picking a viable crop for it to eat? That seems... a bit wacky.

It does. It is actually very interesting for considering early game strategy. I normally let the trees spread on my farm in the first spring - the ones I chop I leave as stumps to spawn seeds. Beach farm also starts with a large area to the south that quickly becomes covered in grass. I didn't screenshot my current farm at the appropriate moment, but I think it probably had 500-600 grass tiles as well as maybe 50-60 tree tiles (if that includes tree seeds and saplings - could be greater), on top of the 248 tilled tiles protected by the scarecrow. So that puts the odds back to about 2% per day with 16 tiles planted in the tillable area. Given I only had to do it for one day (for speed-gro strawberries that had to be planted that night), it was definitely a risk worth taking!
More generally, it suggests that if you have an efficient first scarecrow, it is ok to plant some crops outside that radius, especially early game when you haven't cleared the farm.

 

[Lew Zealand]

OK that explains a lot on my farms. I generally indulge the growth of my Trees (ie: do nothing), add Tapping Orchards, and I especially take a lot of pleasure in planting about 2 dozen batches of Grass Starter on Winter 28 to get the Farm completely covered in Spring green for my freshly thawed Cattle Dinosaurs and Chickens (technically also Dinosaurs...).

And recently proceed to plant things like 100 Fiber Starter yet didn't get a crow for about 5 days. Duh, you need a Scarecrow, fool! But that was ~500 chances of a Crow before finally getting one. Now explained because this is the Beach farm with thousands of occupied tiles for those Crows to choose from thanks to my unkempt— er, organic Farm practices.

 

[BlaDe]

Hold up... so just having a huge field of grass and lots of flooring for pathways and such will reduce the chances of a crow picking a viable crop for it to eat? That seems... a bit wacky.

Yep.

Hoedirt is saved in a collection called terrainFeatures. Other kinds of terrainFeature is Tree (all stages), Grass, Flooring, FruitTree, and CosmeticPlant (iirc the plants in dino levels).

ResourceClumps (Stumps, Logs, Meteorite, GiantCrop), and Bush are LargeTerrainFeatures, and saved in a collection called LargeTerrainFeatures.

Everything else i.e. Stone, Twig, Weed, Anything craftable and placed, are saved in a collection called Objects.

Whenever an event looks for a tilled tile (crows, fairy), or a tree (convert to mushroom trees), terrainFeatures is looked at. Most of these events grab random entries and checks the entry for compatibility.

 

[GarnMcGaughn]

I thought I read somewhere that crows are not on ginger island being it’s an island so scarecrows were not needed? I’ve never seen one or lost a crop there yet as well

 

[Elenna101]

I thought I read somewhere that crows are not on ginger island being it’s an island so scarecrows were not needed? I’ve never seen one or lost a crop there yet as well

Yep, there are no crows on Ginger Island.

 

[LRangerR]

Yep, there are no crows on Ginger Island.

There are parrots, which are much worse.

I personally think it should be seagulls on the beach farm instead of crows.

2c

 

[Ereo]

I thought I read somewhere that crows are not on ginger island being it’s an island so scarecrows were not needed? I’ve never seen one or lost a crop there yet as well

Ginger Island is not the beach farm. The beach farm is the new mainland farm map.

 

[imnvs]

I thought I read somewhere that crows are not on ginger island being it’s an island so scarecrows were not needed? I’ve never seen one or lost a crop there yet as well

Ginger Island is not the beach farm. The beach farm is the new mainland farm map.

This. I completely get the mix-up, both being introduced at the same time, both having beaches where you can get forage, etc etc.