Features:
- Predators assess threats using a strength comparison before engaging
- Animals fear fire; wielding a torch makes you seem more dangerous
- Loud noises like gunshots and explosions startle wildlife
- Creatures react to unseen attacks by fleeing instead of ignoring damage
- Solitary predators such as bears and mountain lions fight their own kind
- Lightweight hunger system lets animals eat corpses to heal
- Animals move significantly faster, making hunting and escaping harder
- Randomized size variation between 85% and 115% for visual diversity
- Each animal has an individual, deterministic personality
- Pack animals like wolves coordinate and assist each other in fights
- Zombie animals never flee and ignore self-preservation instincts
- Fixed a vanilla glow bug affecting some animal models
Natural Selection rebuilds how animals think and act in the wasteland. Instead of simple flee-or-attack logic, creatures now weigh their own strength against yours, react to fire and noise, and remember threats they can't even see.
The mod introduces a hunger system where animals feed on corpses to heal, predators sometimes turn on their own kind, and packs like wolves call out to coordinate attacks. Zombie animals behave with no self-preservation, eating and attacking without fear, while regular animals finally respond to nearby zombies instead of ignoring them.
Size and speed have also been reworked: animals spawn with slight size variation, move faster to make hunting more challenging, and no longer show the odd glowing visual bug some species had in vanilla.
This is aimed at players who want more immersive, believable wildlife behavior and a tougher, more dynamic survival experience.
