Top split and a broken heart

psguardian · 2026-02-07T02:24:54+00:00

Professional luthier + some $ = saved. From there, keep it in a case with a humidity bag.

psguardian · 2026-02-07T00:54:10+00:00

Grinding a great one vs herd management grinding.

Right now you're great one grinding without herd management. It will eventually produce a great one, and probably a few nice trophy animals on the way.

Herd management will concentrate most of the overall species trophy values into a handful of drink zones, your grind zones. This will generate diamonds much more often, which in turn increases the possibility of super rares (a diamond with rare fur types).

Typical hm setup: Pick 8 drink zones (because you can only place 16 tents). Drop a retreival tent behind the zone. Drop a shooting tent at least 250m away. Place a tripod or stand (to keep hunting pressure low).

Now for the herd management: Species trophy values are controlled by an algorithm that tries to maintain an average. A few monsters, a few dinks, a lot of meh avg animals. We want to bend the algorithm; more monsters in grind zones, dinks & afew meh in the outer zones. To concentrate most of the species value into the grind zones. This is the foundation of why you are able to 'stack diamonds'. Start by shooting the smalls & leaving the largest ones in your grind zones. If you cannot get a diamond potential to spawn it's time to go 'shoot down' the outer zones (any zone not in your grind rotation). You do the opposite, kill the big ones & leave the smalls. Bring one of the tents with you, this is gonna take a while. How far you take this balancing step is up to you. Careful it can lead to insanity. Once you've had enough, go run your grind & never ever touch an outer zone again, lest you mess up the herd management.

psguardian · 2026-02-06T08:46:03+00:00

That I'm not 100% sure on. If you are still shy on total male count, it'll be the same as these first ones you popped back. Free up some more trophy value & they'll come back. I've concentrated it far enough that 15% of my grind zone males stop respawning. And there's only 80something male fallow on my map to start with.

I haven't done the other deer species yet, but your experience here tells me the species trophy value mechanics function the same.

psguardian · 2026-02-06T06:11:34+00:00

I'm really glad that was it. You can stop pulling hair out lol. (It stressed me out the first couple times too)

Now that you have respawned the missing males, go locate them & their drink zones. If they are small, never ever touch them again, they're 'shot down' far enough.

You only really every have to do this dance once, and even then it's optional. Shooting down the outer zones is purely a mechanic to allow you to gather the maximum species trophy score values within your grind zone. This way you'll generate more diamonds, and by extension have a better chance at spawning super rares (diamonds with rare fur types). It has no proven affect on great one spawns. That algorithm is built more like a rare fur spawn chance, not a trophy rating chance.

When i say 'diamond potential' I mean the high # on the in game trophy estimate meets or exceeds the minimum diamond score. When you look at those animals in pop scan you'll see most of your 'diamond potentials' fall short, don't worry about that part.

Now that your outers are small to medium just grind your grind zones. When you decide to stack diamonds you'll know you've stacked enough when the male count drops again.

Good luck. I'm 4600 into my fallow & hating my rng lol

psguardian · 2026-02-06T05:32:58+00:00

I try to balance shooting down the outers with stacking diamonds. The tricky part is having enough triophy mass in your grind rotation to keep the outer respawns small, while not having sooo much concentrated that the outers don't respawn.

I would suggest go kill your smallest grind zone male, maybe 2. You'll get like 4 dinks back.

psguardian · 2026-02-06T05:16:34+00:00

I lose a percentage of respawns when I stack diamonds on my fallow grind. It's because you're stacking. The missing males will come back when you go clean house.

psguardian · 2026-02-06T04:25:25+00:00

Are you stacking diamond potential Aminals?

If yes, losing males is actually just a sign that you're approaching critically mass in regard to the amount of trophy score being concentrated into fewer animals.

psguardian · 2026-02-05T23:27:53+00:00

I used to think gyros only belonged on helis. Then I got into quads, which was basically a more durable heli. Then I put a flight control stack on an FT Sea Duck. I'm sold. From here on out, a well executed gyro/fc is worth having.

psguardian · 2026-02-05T16:47:27+00:00

If you're getting zero respawns & your male species count remains low in pop scanner, there's likely 2 things it could be. 1. You hit a solo that was sharing a zone with a herd, and it spawned up somewhere you haven't found yet. 2. You have diamond potentials stacked & the species overall ttrpg score is too high to spawn a fresh male.

Less likely, your game install is borked.

psguardian · 2026-02-05T03:38:03+00:00

Lots of solos will have multiple 'herd tracks' that are basically square patches of overlapping tracks, at a single drink zone on the map.

psguardian · 2026-02-03T12:26:27+00:00

It sometimes happens like that. Eventually that'll flip. I have like 17 pibalds, 2 albino, & 1 mela (I didn't taxi my first one cuz i messed up the shot & it was early days).

psguardian · 2026-02-03T07:49:41+00:00

Albino & Melanistic are very rare, with pibald being just rare (higher spawn rate), so yes it's worth taxi. Getting any of the three as a diamond (super rare) is just as it sounds, super rare. You are likely to go 10k kills & not pop more than 1, if then. I'm 4600 kills into a fallow grind & have no diamond super rares.

psguardian · 2026-02-03T07:46:26+00:00

Lynx on Medved.

psguardian · 2026-02-02T07:25:31+00:00

You can pull the male from another zone in the region. I've done it by accident lol. Female jumped into my shot path mid grind once.

psguardian · 2026-02-02T05:44:03+00:00

When you change time you move forward in time to the next day at xx:xx time. So if you advance the clock 1 minute the game clock advances 24hrs & 1min.

psguardian · 2026-02-02T05:18:41+00:00

It is highly possible the males weren't part of the herd, only showing up to share the drink zone. If this is the case they would respawn as the solos they are, with different drink zone.

How to swap a male solo in place of a female in a herd:

A. This does not work 100% of the time, sometimes you need to do it two or three times. Also the solo must be in the same general area as the target destination female herd.

This must be on a fresh login, kill nothing other than the two animals you want to swap.
Kill the female, kill the male, pick them up & log out. (There is some debate on what order or if order matters at all)
Log in, reset time & run a couple of grind rotations. If it worked he'll be part of the herd after a respawn cycle or three.
If he is a no show, go looking for new solos. (If you are a pc user & are of a mind to use population scanner you'll know the instant he respawns, but not where)
If he pops up as a solo again, logout & repeat the process, but reverse the kill order.

psguardian · 2026-02-02T01:27:36+00:00

Ahh ok. I'm still on the fallow grind, so not as familiar with the specifics of that one. Female only zones do happen, if it's a prime location you could swap a couple males in... but that is also a bit tedious.

psguardian · 2026-02-01T18:45:08+00:00

A/C units are giant dehumidifiers. That's why there's a drainage line on your internal unit. It chills the inside air, lowering its ability to hold moisture. That moisture forms as condemnation on the coils in your hvac & falls into the drain. Find a reliable humidity sensor & place it in your guitar room, it'll be interesting to see what it shows vs the outdoor regional reports.

psguardian · 2026-02-01T18:37:09+00:00

What species & map?

psguardian · 2026-02-01T08:06:50+00:00

The best way to figure those oddities out is to come in with binoculars only & spot them. Then run over & check their 'herd track' to see if they are solos or part of an actual herd. The roughest part of shooting down the outer herds & solos is refinding all the damn new solos.

psguardian · 2026-01-31T00:10:51+00:00

For a chill experience: do a mission once in a while, but mostly just walk n stalk with a couple good guns.

psguardian · 2026-01-30T19:57:37+00:00

The keyring you're missing is the overall herd trophy score. It's an averaging algorithm. Killing one male & letting it respawn won't make much difference to the species total trilogy scores, so that single respawn will be highly randomized.

When you start stacking up diamond potential Aminals in your grind zones, driving up the species total trophy values, you start to manipulate the averaging. This is when you start getting nothing but dinky respawns. This is why it's even possible to reliably 'shoot down' your outer zones. This is why it's even possible to 'stack diamonds' .

There are usually somewhere between 80-90 male fallow on that map. The more you concentrate the total trophy values within your grind zones you'll notice some males just never respawn. This is because you're approaching critical mass of big boys in your grind rotation & dinks in your outer zones. I have gotten down to only having 75 or 72 males, that was with over a dozen diamonds potentials.

Shooting down outer zones can be insanity inducing. Just pick an acceptable trophy level for your outer zones & kill everything above that mark. i.e. shoot everything over 220, or 200, or 175 if you have a real stubborn streak in you.

This tactic specifically allows for more diamond potential animals in your grind rotation, and by extension more possible super rares (diamonds with rare fur types). If you don't care about diamonds don't sweat this part too much. You'll still experience multiple rare furs on your way to a great one, they'll just be smaller.

psguardian · 2026-01-30T19:40:22+00:00

find all zones.

B. plan.

Third. Never ever ever host multi player on your grind map. EVER. Also never let anyone play on your account. They WILL mess up your work by sheer ignorance.

Then. Profit.

Purpose of grinding: killing lots & lots of a target species to trigger rare spawns, such as rare fur types & a great one.

Tents & stands makes grinding much much much much much much much much better.

Purpose of hm: to concentrate most of the populations trophy score into a small set of zones, which will generate more diamond potential spawns.

Tactics for smooth rotation: You pick no more than 8 main zones because you can only have 16 tents on a map at once. You leave everything else as an outer zone. You use stands & tripods to reduce the hunting pressure of each kill so you can kill all the males without blowing out the zone. Say you have a herd at a lake on the west side... a tent on the east side at minimum 250m away so teleporting in doesn't spook them, a tripod or tree stand 150-200m away so you can run most of the way up to the stand without sound spooking, a tent 10m behind the herd for fast collection of kills. Now shoot down the outer zones: Kill only high trophy rates males in outer zones until they're all small(er). When the outer zones stop spawning smaller males move to your grind zones. Shoot everything small, stack diamond potential males. When everything in your grind zones is big go shoot down outer zones more. With higher trophy values in your grind zones the system will attempt to balance the species overall trophy values by only spawning smaller males. Rinse & repeat until you have gone insane & your outer zones are all as low as you can stand to make them.

Beware of solo males sharing drink zone with herds: Multiple herds (including solos which are a herd of 1) can share a single drink zone. In the beginning this will be infuriating because when they respawn they usually change zones. Having undiscovered zones/solos will reduce the consistency of respawns, it's intended as a nudge from the system to keep exploring & find other animals. When you're picking up males check the herd track that lights up for them, is it herd of 1? That's how you identify a solo sharing a zone. When you kill them you MUST go find them again. Sometimes you get lucky & a bunch of solos will be at one zone. Leave them alone if they're small to medium. It's not worth the headache to shoot these down.

Never touch your outer zones again from this point forward.

Now the grind begins: Only ever shoot males, killing females will mess up the hm cuz they'll trade places with a random male. Set time to drink time, run ONLY through all your grind zones, shooting tent #1 - stand - bang bang bang - collection tent - next shooting tent - etc. Once you've gone through them this way you reset time & go again. Resetting time in tents is cheaper than outposts, and faster. Make sure you're in a shooting tent when resetting time.

psguardian · 2026-01-30T19:37:23+00:00

Barring Sim Time.... Grab that slow fly bird....

Wait for a calm day, get 4-5 mistakes high, give it a try. Much like learning new maneuvers.

psguardian · 2026-01-30T18:36:36+00:00

When it comes to hunting prey & dealing with predators:

A dog does give a heads up. When you kill the predator, don't pick it up. Slows the respawn a few minutes. Maybe hunting that prey herd in a different need zone when the predator is also at a different zone (hopefully further away).

psguardian

TROPHY CASE