Use Q to focus on scent and wind
Q toggles the current scent-and-wind focus. The overlay and tracking panel turn the world's sensory data into information the player can use: local scent samples, wind direction, trails, and range-limited population clues. Toggle back when you want the quieter normal field view.
The focus is an interpretation layer, not a map-wide reveal. The simulation tracks individual animals, carcasses, water knowledge, threats, routes, and regional context, while the player receives only the portion that the active lion's senses and experience can support.
Read direction before closing distance
Your scent travels with the wind. A direct approach from the wrong side can alert prey before attack range. Check the wind line, circle when necessary, and use cover and lower movement noise before committing energy to a chase.
The same system can work in reverse: nearby danger has a scent, too. Rival pressure, carcasses, water gatherings, and animal trails can give you a reason to slow down before a threat is visible.
Weather and ground change what remains
Rain reduces scent persistence. Ground conditions independently affect track retention, scent retention, slipping, noise, movement, and injury risk. Wet grass and mud hold more information than bare rock or shallow water; ash may preserve a track while carrying little scent; deep water can erase the trail while creating noise and movement cost.
This means an old route is not a permanent glowing path. A storm, a water crossing, a hard surface, or elapsed time can break the sequence. When evidence weakens, combine scent with nearby-animal direction, water knowledge, movement, sound, and the Field Journal instead of following one cue beyond what it supports.
Stalking is a trade between speed and detection
The lion simulation changes visibility and noise with movement state, cover, weather, and learned skill. Stalking lowers detection pressure but closes distance slowly. Sprinting is useful after the approach, not as a replacement for it: it raises energy and temperature cost and can announce the chase.
Face the target before striking. Attacks are direction- and distance-gated; a target outside roughly four meters or outside the lunge direction can produce a miss. Herd animals also differ in awareness, speed, mass, defensive behavior, and group response, so the same approach does not fit every animal.
Knowledge can age or remain incomplete
The living-world state includes discovered water, food, dens, territory, threats, migration routes, ambush locations, safe rest, settlements, and fire-prone regions. Knowledge improves through discovery and practice, but accuracy can age. Former controlled lives and ordinary wildlife also retain individual personality, skills, knowledge, trauma, and behavioral signatures.
That design matters to the Field Guide: it explains systems without promising that the player will always know the exact location, freshness, safety, or future behavior of everything in the ecosystem.
A repeatable tracking sequence
- Stop and read wind, weather, ground, water, and current condition.
- Toggle Q and identify the strongest nearby cue.
- Approach across cover while watching noise, visibility, energy, and heat.
- Recheck after rain, hard ground, or a water crossing breaks the trail.
- Save sprint energy for the final chase or escape.
- Use the Journal when memory and regional context matter more than a local marker.
Next, learn how water, heat, rest, and energy constrain every approach, or return to the first-day guide.